Houston, We Have Liftoff

[Carl La Fong]

After months of chasing my tail and general dicking around, the bike runs. The carb was an issue, as the video in my other thread showed. I will still keep a close eye on it for leakage, but it is good, right now. For two days, I have kept myself locked in the garage, examining everything over and over. It would crank and try to start. Sometimes it would catch for a moment and then stall out. I eliminated the carb as suspect. I ran a compression test. I have one cylinder that is down, quite a bit, but still enough to run pretty good. That leaves ignition. I checked the spark with a spare plug and it seemed weak. A thin yellow spark. It should be a big, fat blue one. Now, the landfills are full of coils that were swapped out for new ones that did no good. I bought my share when I was a kid. It didn't take long to figure that coils rarely fail. But fail, they do. I hot footed it to the parts house and grabbed a new Accel Super Coil. Stuck it in, hit the button and it fired instantly. A ride to the end of the block and back showed me that it was the stupid coil, all along. It might have even been a part of the "carb problem" that I have been fighting forever. So, a bit of fiddling tomorrow with idle mixture, idle speed and timing and I think I might be golden.

[petitemoose]

Glad you got to the root of the problem! Not knowing can drive you Nuckin' Futs!

[Orlando606VetteTrike]

Great find John.

[Jack]

Sucks that it was probably the coil all along... I know for me it cost almost $3000 to figure out my "fuel problem" was an "ignition problem" all along.

In then end - you should have ended up with a better carb though - right?

[Carl La Fong]

Yeah, I'm sure it will run better with the Carb Mike setup. I had pulled the plugs, a few weeks ago, and they were sooty. I attributed it to a rich fuel mix, but it was probably weak spark causing incomplete combustion. I still haven't started it today to finish setting the idle and timing. Life got in the way, as usual. Tomorrow, for sure

[SQ4MN]

Will you be at the meeting Saturday? Do you think the bike will be rideable?

[Carl La Fong]

I'll be there, for sure.
Pretty sure I'll be on the bike if I can remember how to ride it