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?

So. I like my bike. Cant WAIT to get all 4 cylinders working...haha. The only thing I DONT like. The seat. Now, I think it is more to do with THIS seat. Feels like perhaps some prior owner weighed twice what I do. Its just flat with little padding. Are there seats out there still that are good? Aftermarket? Or is this another scour CL thing? Before I go up and see Snyper this weekend, I might look to see if my 83 or my 86 parts bikes seats are any better. Thoughts?

I might have to take you up on it. I was thinking once I realized it was 1 cyl short it was going to be an easy fix...lol. not so much. haha. I might run it up to Joplin one of the next couple weekends if I cant solve it before that. The tool that I had was a little $5 deal. The spark in it was yellow...but I dont know if it shows any variances. I am going to try it on one of the other cyl's tomorrow to see if they look the same or not.

OK... Had a chance to run to parts store. I got 1 new plug. Was going to get 4 but they didnt have the NKG and I read enough to know to only use them. They had the Champion equivalent. I got one to use temporarily for diagnosing mostly. I also grabbed a tool that will show me spark at the end of the wire. I plugged the tool into the end of the wire and the other end onto the plug still in the engine. It showed sparks in the chamber to say it IS getting spark. So I got excited and figured that it had to just be the plug. Pulled the old plug off. Didnt look horrible, but some black on the electrode etc. Not wet black though...almost looks powdery. Put in the champion plug (note: I did not grab a spark plug gap tool....) and started it. Did not seem to make any difference. Let it warm up (in the garage, gravel is muddy outside) and put water in the area where the spark plug goes in #3 cyl. It starts hissing and boiling. Put it in the same place on the #4 that was giving me issues. Nothing. Now...its hot...just not hot like it should be. When I swapped the wire the other day, I just took the false gas tank cover off, and finagled it with my fingers...trimmed the end of a different wire from the parts bike and put it on the bike. I did NOT get into look at the coil at that time or anything at all. So it would seem there is SOME spark....maybe not ENOUGH spark....is that possible?

I am starting a new thread because my first one was primarily about the carbs...and this is electrical... Problem: Bike seems to be running good, but getting 24mpg on average at 65mph(ish) Diagnosis: I thought this was a carb issue because the previous owner had issues. I got carbs sync'd and runs good, but MPG was bad. Someone said look at making sure all 4 were running right. I assumed that because carbs sync'd they had to be right. That was wrong. #4 cylinder did not boil the water off like the other 3 did. Pull the plug wire, and no change in how it runs etc. Pull #2 , and bike dies. This leaves me to think it HAS to be running on 3 cyl's. Steps I have taken so far: Not much. I did pull a plug wire off my parts bike and trimmed the end and attached it to my bike with zero change. Questions: Is there a way to test things to isolate which part of the spark is the issue? I was planing to pull the plug and swap it out. I was thinking there is a little tool I can plug into the wire to check if spark is coming through the wire, but I am certain it is not. A brief search makes me think to swap the coils from my parts bike or something will be a huge pain...I will do it, but wondering if there is a better way than just swapping parts around. Also, this is not my area of expertise. I dont know how to really use a volt meter etc. Lastly, I saw a little mention of a COP modification or something....Does this have value for me?

I do not have a toolkit.

OK. So the coils are up on top of the bike, kind of in front of the battery. The #4 is the one that I don't think is working right. I pulled the wire off the parts bike, trimmed it and reattached to the bike I ride. No difference at all. I was going to pull the plug, but dont know the right size and didn't have one that fit handy. I do not have anything to test if it's the wire, the plug, or the coil right now....and parts stores are closed. I'm guessing there is a tool I can plug in the end of the spark plug wire to tell me if I'm getting spark.... Then try different wires to know if it's coil or wires that is the issue???

OK, so I went out and started it....Pulled the plug off the one I thought was not working...No change in how it ran. Pull the plug off of another one (I think #2 ) and it stopped all together. So I think we have found the source of bad mpgs as well as the raw fuel smell. Now...what are the possible causes? Also...I think I was wrong. I think it is the #4 cylinder. As I am sitting on the bike, it is the one on the right side front towards the radiator. Same one that yesterday I thought was not working....I just think I was counting them wrong.

I have not done anything with plugs or wires at all. When I got home after about an hour ride, I splashed a little water at each cylinder. I THINK that there is a chance the #3 is not working. The 3 others sizzled and boiled the water....the #3 was hot to to touch....but it did NOT boil the water and sizzle the same way.

when I get home I will water test all 4 and see if they are hot I guess

I "assume" so. I did sync the carbs with a carbtune and was able to get all 4 to balance...so has to be running on 4 right?