B
BRycraft
Guest
On my 82 GS850GLZ which I am finishing restoring, it was running fine then all of a sudden it was backfiring and wouldn't idle. After finding #3#4 pipes hot and #1#2 pipes cold I swapped wires and no help at first then problem jumped after a short while. Using a spark tester all leads were sparking (so it appeared), plugs were new, compression is very good, valves adjused properly, new fuel tank and petcock, inline filter, & carbs were professionally serviced. I pulled the coils and found specs in limits, 4 oms primary and 12K secondary, then I checked the NGK boots that come off the ends of the wires and on the boots themselves found stamped 5K ohms, when I did a ohm test 2 of them were reading well over 10K while the other 2 were closer to 5K ohms. Since the plug wires on the coils were molded into the coils I decided on replacing them with Dynatek's DC1-1, new wires and plugs. When I rechecked the spark using the spark tester they glowed bright orange compared to the small orange glow that I assumed was normal earlier as I never used one of these testers before so I had no real reference as what normal glow was, so either the coils were starting to fail even though they checked in the normal spec range or a combo of them the suspect wires and out of spec boots was part of my problem. After it started and ran for a few minutes smoothly it started acting like 2 of the cylinders were not firing and this time #1#2 were hot and #3#4 were not, i sprayed some carb cleaner in the carbs and then they all were getting hot then it started acting up again and wouldn't idle, then only 1 pipe was cold, I was about to lose what was left of my mind, what could be happening? Yesterday I decided to pull the carbs something I didn't want to do and checked all the floats, a couple were misadjusted which I tended to, I cleaned the needle valves and screens anyway, and pulled and cleaned the slides as they appeared to stick slightly when released after they were pushed up. I put it all back together and decided to replace the inline fuel filter I had installed when this all went together the first time, even though it was clear, this was one of thoes $2 filters that are clear plastic and looks like a top or martini glass, anyway when I pulled the hoses off the filter I was disturbed by what had happened, the ends of the filter that were inside the hoses were melted and deformed, the supply tubes were closed up more then 1/2 way restricting fuel big time. This filter was not laying on the engine but it was touching the top of the carbs and the filter body was unharmed, there isn't much room for a filter between petcock and carb inlet on this bike, but thought extra precaution wouldn't hurt. Somehow there was enough heat generated in that area do deform the ends of this type filter and restrict gas flow. What was happening was after it sat long enough for the fuel to fill the floats it would run just till 1 or more of the bowls would starve for fuel and whichever carb was more dominant was the one that would draw more fuel leaving the others very lean.
So I thought I would leave this thread for those who may think things are working properly when they may not be and not to over look the obvious.
This was driving me nuts, I put a lot into this bike and for 19 miles it had run very good when it all of a sudden gave me fits. Here the filter I installed which looked good was actually the primary problem. I dont regret replacing the coils because the glow on that spark tester is by far much brighter then before. I hope this helps someone else who may be having 1 or more of the problems I was having, any of which will kill the performance of a motor in a hurry.
Bill
So I thought I would leave this thread for those who may think things are working properly when they may not be and not to over look the obvious.
This was driving me nuts, I put a lot into this bike and for 19 miles it had run very good when it all of a sudden gave me fits. Here the filter I installed which looked good was actually the primary problem. I dont regret replacing the coils because the glow on that spark tester is by far much brighter then before. I hope this helps someone else who may be having 1 or more of the problems I was having, any of which will kill the performance of a motor in a hurry.
Bill