Unfortunately I narrowly missed out on a cheap parts bike recently for my 83 GS650GL and now am tempted to ante up for a GS650 shaftie ignitor (32900-34210). I've serviced the carbs to death (five times out total!) and then determined that failure to rev freely (above about 3-4K) is definitely ignition. I proved this by unhooking the HT lead off of number 4 cylinder plug, inserting a fifth plug into this HT wire, and watching this extra plug fire in low light with my sharp-eyed son. Didn't even need his eyes to see what happens. So while running on three cyls, watching number 4 plug wire firing a grounded plug, bright strong blue spark at low RPM changes to feeble more orangy spark at higher RPM. I checked the pickup coil resistance is right in midrange of spec. I'm convinced the carbs are perfect; this thing really wants to rev, in fact will give a couple full great revs before bogging with the symptom I described. I knew it wasn't the ignition coils but since I had a brand new in package aftermarket set on hand for my 850 I changed them anyway. Exactly same symptom. So I'm about to pony up for an ignitor but wanted to be sure it's not like some Hondas where there is a separate pickup for the advanced timing that I should be considering? The other thing I'll try to do is to heat the pickup for testing, since I do get a brief excellent rev out of it before failing.
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83 GS650GL ignition issue
- Thread starter ednearls
- Start date
Tight valves will limit your revs too. I've seen this a lot. Even flipped some bikes I purchased for near nothing when the seller insisted it wasn't the problem.
A hair drier heating up the exciter should cause the issue really fast, if that is the issue, and you can have the bike on the center stand, and watch everything. Put a good floor fan in front of the engine though if you run it for any amount of time. Just make sure it's pointing away from the hair driver. Don't use a heat gun, it gets too hot and can damage the seals. You can purchase an in line sight glass for viewing the spark.
A hair drier heating up the exciter should cause the issue really fast, if that is the issue, and you can have the bike on the center stand, and watch everything. Put a good floor fan in front of the engine though if you run it for any amount of time. Just make sure it's pointing away from the hair driver. Don't use a heat gun, it gets too hot and can damage the seals. You can purchase an in line sight glass for viewing the spark.
