I thought I would take this chance to share some of the knowledge I have gained over the years of wrenching on my blaster

Have any of you ever wondered what all those gears do in your blaster? How does the power from the piston get to your transmission, and then to the sprocket, ultimately ending up at the rear wheels? How does the clutch work? These are all important things to know when working around engines. If you take the time to get to know your machine, diagnosis and repair becomes much easier. He is some of the stuff that I have learned and will share with you.
There are two ends on your crank. Let’s start with the left side. On the left side, your crank moves out through the case halves and into your flywheel. This hole in your case has a bearing called a main bearing and is covered by a seal. A leaking left side seal will cause the engine to blow out some of the fuel air mixture during crankcase compression and draw air during crankcase vacuum. This can cause an excessively lean mixture; reduce power, and erratic idling. There is also another seal located on the left side that’s behind the sprocket. This is called the countershaft seal. It keeps dirt and debris thrown from the drive chain and sprocket out of your transmission.
Ever heard the term woodruff key? This small piece of metal, although it looks useless it is very important. This key is shaped like a half moon and fits into the keyway on your crank. Once you slide your flywheel over the crank your woodruff key gives it a place to attach. Without it, your crank would spin inside your flywheel. Some people when servicing their flywheel don’t install it correctly. When the spinning crankshaft finally brakes free from the flywheel it’s called shearing the key. Woodruff keys can be offset. Some companies make offset keys, or degree keys. These simply re-align your flywheel over the stator. Rotating the stator relative to the flywheel can either advance, or retard the ignition. This can also be achieved by slotting the stator plate which is the same concept except the stator is being rotated and the flywheel stays still. Some people believe that this practice is safer then using offset keys because they believe using a degree will weaken it, causing the flywheel to sheer. As your crank rotates, it takes your flywheel with it. Underneath your flywheel is the stator plate I mentioned earlier. The flywheel, and stator combined make up the magneto assembly. This is basically what powers your engine, and lights. On the stator plate there are3 coils. The one located on the left is the lighting coil and on the right is the charge coil. On the bottom between the other two is the pulsar, or pickup coil.
Blasters are equipped with a capacitor discharge ignition (CDI) system. This system consists of the magneto assembly, CDI unit, ignition coil, main engine switch (key), kill switch, and the T.O.R.S unit. As the flywheel rotates over the stator plate (which is stationary) the magnets create a current. This is called a solid state system; it uses no contact or other moving parts to create power. Alternating current from the magneto is rectified and used to charge the capacitor. AS the piston approaches firing position, a pulse from the pulsar coil is rectified. It moves through the CDI and reaches the primary side of the high voltage ignition coil where it is stepped up to a high enough voltage to jump the gap across the spark plug. The lighting coil also uses power created from the rotating flywheel. The power created moves through a wire (yellow red) and connects to the voltage regulator. Have you ever noticed that when you are driving with your light on and the higher you rev the brighter it gets? It’s the voltage regulators job to control this. As your RPM’s decrease your flywheel slows down which creates less energy, thus resulting in a weaker signal. Your CDI unit and ignition coil also work to control this and keep the spark even during the entire RPM range. Once the power leaves the voltage regulator it gets routed to the handlebar controls, or the light switch. From there it controls the head light and tail light, (and the brake light on 2002+ models). The 2 other wires coming from your stator plate are also important. The back is a ground, and the other is connected to your CDI unit, which connects it to your kill switch, key, and that pesky T.O.R.S unit that we all hate
Any questions? Good, onto the fun stuff. Clutch, transmission, and counter balancer. Have you ever taken of your right side case cover and looked in, what do you see? There are a lot of gears and each on has its specific purpose. As you kick down on the kick started it is connected to a gear and a spring. As you kick down it rotates the gear which in turn rotates the idler gear. This gear is basically to start the engine. Have you ever heard anyone say that it’s best to pull in your clutch when starting the engine? Why would you, as long as it’s in neutral right? Wrong. If you don’t disengage your clutch then when you kick it over and spin that idler gear it is trying to turn over the entire transmission also. This is putting extra strain on the gears that it doesn’t need to have. That idler gear is connected to your clutch, which is connected to your primary drive gear, which in turn is attached to your crank.
Just like the flywheel on the right, your crank is spinning something else on the right side. On the right side of the crank is 2 gears. A larger one in the back which runs your counterbalance gear and the smaller which is the primary drive gear. This larger gear is connected to another gear of the same size. Now this is where physics comes into play. If you have two gears, of the same size then which way are they going to spin? Opposite, and if one makes a full rotation, how many does the other make, One. Your counterbalance shaft is to steady the crank and reduce vibration. The countershaft is a solid shaft, cut in two like a half moon. It rotates opposite of your crank. The weights on the shaft steady your crank and keep it stable and it spins. This can be removed to free up some extra power. By removing this you’re removing weight that you’re motor has to spin, similar to lightening your flywheel. However to do this you need to have your crank trued and balanced.
Behind your balancer gear on the crank there is the right side crank seal. Sometimes this seal lets loose and allows movement between it and the crankcase. Similar to the left side seal, if this one lets go it will allow the bottom end oil to be drawn into the crankcase. As well all know 2-strokes use different oil to lubricate the crankcase, and the transmission. If the vacuum from the rising piston draws in oil from the bottom end, the motor will try to burn it. This will cause a excessive rich condition due to the large amount of thick oil no being pulled into the crankcase. There is a simple test that can be done to check this seal. Drain the oil using the drain plug underneath. When it is empty, start the bike but do not drive it! Don’t let it run for very long but long enough to see if it will idle properly. If the seal was leaking it would idle rough and smoke. However, with no oil left to draw in it shouldn’t smoke and the idle should become smooth again. However don’t let it run for a long time because your transmission and clutch are starting to heat up. Also, without the oil being drawn into the case it is now drawing air, which can cause the piston and crank to heat up quickly.
The primary drive gear that is also located on the crank is what transfers the power to your clutch. Remember that gear that I mentioned earlier around the outside of the clutch housing? That gear meshes with the primary drive gear which turns your clutch. Your clutch is made up of 2 pieces, the clutch basket, and the inner hub. As your primary drive gear turns your clutch housing/basket it also spins the friction plates inside. When you clutch is engaged these friction plates are squeezing the clutch plates which are attached to the inner hub. The pressure plate that is on the outside has springs that squeeze all these friction plates, and clutch plates together. When you pull in your clutch lever, or disengage your clutch you are pushing on these springs and separating the pressure plate from the friction plates. Now that there is no pressure on the friction plates, they can no longer squeeze the clutch plates inside. Now the inner hub and clutch plates can spin free from the crank.
Confused yet? This inner hub is attached to your mainshaft inside your transmission. This shaft has 4 gears mounted on it. First is a larger gear which is fifth gear followed by a combination gear which is third/forth. After that comes sixth and second. Your transmission is fairly simple. Remember when I mentioned earlier about two gears the same size making the same number of rotations, well this is the opposite. Inside your transmission are 2 shafts. The mainshaft and the countershaft. Each shaft has different size gears on it each offset from the others. First gear is powerful, but slow. That’s because it uses a real small gear combined with a larger one. Second, third, fourth, and fifth all work on the same principle. As you shift gears the mainshaft and countershaft line up different size gears to create each different gear. Fore example, when you’re in first gear, only the two gears are lined up, one on the main and one on the counter. When you shift to second, your shafts shift. Now 2 different gears line up which provides different speed and power.
You’re shifting is done with the external shifter. It’s that thing that you click when you want to change gears. As you click up and down to move through the gears it rotates the shifting drum. This drum has lines or groves in it that offset the main and countershaft. As you rotate the shift drum is rotates 3 different shift forks. The first shift fork is installed into the countershaft sixth groove. The second is installed into mainshaft third/forth groove and the third is installed into the countershaft fifth groove. Each shift fork is marked with a number for easy installation. As I said earlier the shift drum rotates these forks. As they rotate they line up different gears on the two shafts, which gives you your sixth speed transmission. As your clutch spins the inner hub, it spins the mainshaft that spins the countershaft. On the left side of the countershaft is the front sprocket. From there we all know how the power gets to the rear wheels. I hope you took the time to read this and that you gain some knowledge about the blaster. Having knowledge of how you machine works makes diagnosis quick and easy.

 

Shav0-

First thanks for taking the time to type all that out. I know it helped me to familiarize myself with my blaster. It was full of great info. thanx man