Well I was supposed to be in Birmingham tonight. Instead I'm posting from my garage.
My visiting Swiss friend and I were packed and headed out at 7:45 this morning. Putting through town, bike gets good and warm, and then we hit the highway. Everything is going great.
For seven miles.
Just out of town, my bike started misfiring and was down on power. I was a little low on fuel, and I thought it might be vapor lock again. Pulled over to investigate.
No problems with my rerouted fuel line...so I started thinking maybe a carb got plugged.
My buddy said "what about ignition?" Hmm...it did seem to start awful abruptly. I felt the headers...1, HOT! 2, warm...3-4, HOT HOT, 5, warm 6, OUCH, Yeah that's hot!
So I whipped out the wiring diagram and sure enough, 2 and 5 work off the same coil!
We slunk back to the house and I pulled the tank off. To my chagrin, I noticed that the upper nut for the coil power was virtually touching the bolt for the bracket (remember, this bike has Accel coils on it). In fact, it looked like it was occasionally grounding out!
I loosened the clamps and resituated the coil. Test fire, we're back to all six! Tank on, hoses on, and back on the road.
By now, it's only 9:30, still plenty of time for a leisurely ride through North Georgia.
Back out of town, bike is running great.
Until it isn't.
It's like someone flipped a switch and I've lost two cylinders again! We got pulled over, and the #2 and #5 headers are cold again.
Well, I made it nine miles this time!
I sent my buddy on his way, and I turned back north for the ride of shame. Got back to the house, pulled the tank (I'm getting really good at that) and broke out the meter.
After some poking around with my meter, I discovered that my 3 ohm coil has transformed into an ∞ ohm coil.
So I called Accel to find out what the part number of the coil was so I could track down another one. After getting bounced from one department to another, a tech told me that there isn't a part number for just a coil. Wow, weird.
Went down the road to my local bike shop to see if he had anything. He didn't, but he has a lightbulb come on...
"I'm a distributor for Parts Unlimited...they have a warehouse in Hendersonville...I bet they've got something!"
He broke open the catalog, and found a single coil kit... Called them up, arranged for me to pick it up, and off I went in my truck, leaving a cloud of "THANK YOU!!"s and tire smoke in my wake.
It's about an hour and a half over to Hendersonville, and I can't pick the parts up till 3:30...
Stop for lunch, pick up my coil, and turn and burn back to Franklin...
Got home, slapped it on, and went for a 40-mile shakedown. Bike is back to flawless.
So that brings us up to speed. Hitting the hay now, planning on a 9am departure weather permitting. Fingers crossed.
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