Ok so I posted about a month ago with an electrical question and got some helpful answers have still not resolved the issue at hand. This is what is going on.

Basically my bike is running rich. To the point that I can hold my hand behind the exhaust and it will be covered in black within a minute. Inside of the exhaust is covered in soot. Pretty bad if you ask me. Now let's see if you guys in all of your infinite wisdom :) can lend a helping hand to someone with less experience in the mechanics department.

Here is what happened.

About a month ago I went to start my bike. Turned on the choke. Cranked the engine. And there was a pop and smoke came out from under the tank. The smoke smelt electrical. I work on computers and I know that electrical smell. Needless to say that freaked me out. But I tried to crank her again and surprisingly she started right up. But I had noticed she is idling a little rough and low rpm's. Under 1k. She never stalls just idles low. I also notice now that in low gears when trying to hold a constant speed she surges. So I started in the normal spot under the tank. Checked the fuel pump. Flows fine. Hmmm. Ok so now I start to notice that she is running rich very rich. Also a decrease in power and rough running. So rough that on a 10 minute ride the vibrations are so bad that my hands are completely numb. I can also feel the vibrations through my shoes in the pegs. Pretty bad. So I started thinking ignition coils. Maybe she is misfiring. So I take her back apart. While I have her apart i change the plugs just in case. I then do a resistance test on the coils. Recommended resistance is 1.? - 2.? (can't remember the exact range) on a multimeter with a 1 ohm setting. Now on my multimeter i only have the 20, 200, 2k etc settings. So I put it on the lowest and test(not a electrical engineer so I hope that is right) and get a reading of the high 3.? ohm. So I would naturally assume there is too much resistance in the coils and maybe the sparks is just to weak and causing the bike to misfire.

So my question is do you guys think I may have found the root of my problem or is there anything else you can recommend that I test or should look into. Hopefully I am on the right path.

Thank you so much for your assistance in advance.

Jarod

My advice would be to check out all of the wiring and electrical stuff under and around the tank for damage or burning.

If you find anything repair or replace.

Then if it still runs rich check out the carbs and clean internally. If the misfire is at lowish revs it could be your pilot jets are clogged. If it really is running very rich one of your float valve needle may be sticking.

However, my bike doesn't run rich according to my spark plugs but still has a black exhaust tip.

Have you checked the plugs regarding colour?

Finally I would think your coils are probably fine. But check that the spark plug boots are firmly screwed onto the HT leads. Its possible to unintentionally pull on the HT lead when removing the boots from the spark plugs. Then although the lead is still inside the boot the voltage has to jump a gap before it reaches the plug. This happened to one of my leads and caused the bike to run on 3 cylinders at low revs. I had to trim 1/8" off each lead and then reattach the plug boots to cure it as the inner copper core had been stripped out of the end of at least one HT lead.

My advice would be to check out all of the wiring and electrical stuff under and around the tank for damage or burning.

If you find anything repair or replace.

Then if it still runs rich check out the carbs and clean internally. If the misfire is at lowish revs it could be your pilot jets are clogged. If it really is running very rich one of your float valve needle may be sticking.

However, my bike doesn't run rich according to my spark plugs but still has a black exhaust tip.

Have you checked the plugs regarding colour?

Finally I would think your coils are probably fine. But check that the spark plug boots are firmly screwed onto the HT leads. Its possible to unintentionally pull on the HT lead when removing the boots from the spark plugs. Then although the lead is still inside the boot the voltage has to jump a gap before it reaches the plug. This happened to one of my leads and caused the bike to run on 3 cylinders at low revs. I had to trim 1/8" off each lead and then reattach the plug boots to cure it as the inner copper core had been stripped out of the end of at least one HT lead.


thanks for the response. I will check into it. I am just trying to avoid any unnecessary purchases. Especially electrical seeing as it is non returnable.

If anyone else has recommendations as well it will be much appreciated.

One final thing, If you get to the bottom of the richness problem and it still vibrates badly, synch the carbs