mcompton1973

Some of you may or may not remember me. About a year ago I purchased a really nice '86 royale that had a lot of work done to it. Progressive springs, 2 new tires, CLASS fixed etc etc. I was having an issue because of 4th cyl not firing...or not 100%. In the process of trying different coils and wires I lost more cyl and at last step I believe that the TCI was probably the issue and needed to be replaced. No problem, I have a parts bike as well...I was going to do that. Then........I disappeared. Well, what happened was I was in a car accident. Had nothing to do with the bike...messed up my neck and back pretty good. To date...I still can not ride, although I am mostly OK. I did go and buy an FJR thinking that something smaller would be doable. I guess not smaller enough, and I am too far in the boonies with too much highway for me to want to do something even smaller. So...First I want to say that I appreciate all the people that tried to help me with this bike...you guys are awesome. Second...I am going to be putting it up for sale. I also have an '83 regular with no title...but pretty complete...and an 86 parts bike that is probably 90% there. All the bikes spent the winter outside...So the condition went down some. I am not meaning for this to be a classified post....but if someone in this group wanted to come get all 3 bikes from Oklahoma...they would get a hell of a deal. You can search my name and see some of what I was dealing with before and all the things that have been done to the bike. PM me...otherwise I will put them on CL or Ebay and in the classifieds. Thanks guys again for all the support and help.

OK. I have another TCI, it came off a parts bike so I do not know the overall condition of it. I am thinking that I could remove the airbox, remove connectors to the TCI and mount new one on top of airbox (which everyone says I should do anyways.) Do you guys typically just put some velcro tape on it and on the airbox to hold it in place or what? Like I said, I did not ride it in rain, but it did rain when the fake gas cover was off, so maybe got moisture in it???

Is it possible that I messed up a coil just by taking spark plug wires on and off? I went out and tripple checked that I had good connection to the #2 . I used a different cable. I am getting no spark through the #2 now. That is what is causing the hard start. I am basically running on only 2 cylinders now. TCI? Or Coil? or what would you do/check next?

OK. That makes a lot of sense then. I must not have gotten the # 2 hooked back up right still. I will go mess with it some more.

Pulled the wires off the 2 and 4 again. Trimmed them...did what I could to make sure they were actually connecting at the coil. No difference. Now...I DID have the bike parked for a week with the fake gas tank off, and it rained once. All the fuses, main fuses etc all look fine. I have a charger on the bike because the battery was low from trying to start it so many times. One thing I noticed today. There is no Tach. Is that significant? I had tach working fine before. My last ride the odometer was not working...but the tach was fine. Now even when I do get it started, there is no tach...and it sounds just like the video I posted last week. I want to get it back to running on the 3 cylinders at least the way it was so I can do compression test, and then if that is OK, I will go back to TCI?Coils as a possibility I guess.

I got a compression gauge from Autozone today. This weekend I will pull wires again. trim ends. Make sure that I am getting good connections at the coil, and swap the coils again and the leads going to the coils. BEfore I do that, I will make sure I can get good compression on all 4 cylinders. Thanks for the help, I will keep you posted later this weekend

I did not think about the wetness. I actually had the false gas tank cover off the bike and it got rained on this weekend. Wonder if that could be part of the problem. Also possible from your post that I did not get the wires put on the coils properly. I kind of assumed that as I screwed the cap on it would pull the wire into the coil enough, but now that I look at it a little closer I see that would not be the case. So I probably need to redo that experiment completely after few hot dry days. I'm also going to go ahead and get a compression tester and check compression on All 4 cylinders. I think those two things will give me more information.

I just took coil output from 2 to 4. I guess inputs should have changed because of timing. That said...why is it bad once i out bacj the way it was?

If you have not noticed...I dont have a ton of time to mess with this bike. Starting to frustrate me. I want to ride. Uggg. Someone wants to spend 1750 they can get it...my parts bike....and my 83 with no title. Ok. Heres the deal today. I tried to swap coils on #2 and #4 . I got a universal plug wire kit. Ran #2 coil to #4 cyl. Ran #4 to the #2 . Could not really get it to start. Didnt make since to me. Figured if coil or TCI was bad...would start and the #2 cyl would be the one not firing right...if it was carb related would start and #4 would stay not working right. Put things back the way they were...still isnt right. Not starting...or will start...idle like crap and die if you try to give it fuel. Recorded a short video.

yeah, if I just change the harness wires...it would tell me if there was an issue with the TCI maybe...but a bad coil would not move because the wire coming from the #4 coil would be going to the #4 cylinder still. So it the coil was bad, I still would not know. I do NOT have room to move the wires from one coil to another side...so I will need to buy something I guess. What Ohm????

Seems like the logical step. Take the #2 plug wire and connect it to the #4 coil, and #4 plug wire to the #2 coil. If it is coil/TCI related....the 'cold' cylinder would move to the #2 and the #4 would be normal. If it is carb related....the #2 would be hot and normal and the #4 would show no change. The problem is....I dont see how to get my wires to reach to the other coil. Would I just need to buy a couple 'universal' wires to make it work? and if so...what specs do I need to look for?

I did pull the TCI out of my parts bike. I have not done anything with it... But thought about Cleaning it up and seeing there was a difference. I looked and have not found directions on removing the coils.... Unless the only way is to remove the whole fairing. I was told to try and switch the plugs and wires from the 2 and 4 and see if the dead cylinder moves or not... So might try that.

Yeah, caps/wired might be next step. I still can not decide if it is really carb or something else. Today I rode it to MO and met up with Snyper. We put his colortune in the #4 . there is clearly spark....but pretty much no actual combustion. We were seeing white sparks...every once in a while we would get an orange flash when we reved it....but that is only a flash and not consistent. Still no sound difference in the engine with plug wire attached to the #4 or not. We closed the pilot screw all the way....no change. Open it 3 turns....no change. We took out the screw, sprayed carb cleaner in there, let it sit, repeat a couple times.....closed it all up....no change. Another interesting thing. The spark plug has only 200 miles on it...black, dry tip...smells like gas.

Just curious what your next bike will be if you get one and why? I am loving my 86 right now, so I am not in a hurry to change. I do think if I got something different it would be something like the VStrom1000. Not that I need a true duel sport...but my bike now makes the 2 miles of gravel to the highway seem awfully long. lol. I think I would like being able to remove bags and have a more 'naked' bike for running to work or something, but be able to load it up for trips still.

Do you have a number or email for him?