Help! Running on 2!

[makenzie71]

...or maybe 3 cylinders, it's hard to tell. What I do know is that it ain't right.

1981 GS750E

Got the bike going again at the beginning of last week. About 40 miles after getting into it again, she started misfiring. I've never replaced the plugs, so I did that and the problem went away for about 40 miles...then misfiring again. She sounds like a v-twin, nearly...

I'm fairly sure it is not the carburetors. I cleaned them out and there was some debris in them, but not a great deal of it, and it had no effect on the running condition. I've also done a very thorough cleaning of them yesterday, after the plugs were changed, and again saw no change.

My spark plug wires have some dry rot, but it's nothing new. There's no moisture and they're not grounding on anything else.

Are there any coils that have replaceable spark plug wires that will work with this bike?

[makenzie71]

And there's nonsense like right now...I went and played with it right now. I pulled the #1 and #3 plug wires off and they have LOTS of spark (ask me how I know). I put them back and restart, the bike backfires pretty gnarly, but she's puts around on all four without any mishap.

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Some troubleshooting tips:

Diagnosing Slow Cranking
Igniter/Signal Generator/Coil Test
Igniter Repair/Testing (2MB PDF)

Are the carbs really clean, as in totally disassembled, dipped, and reassembled with a new O-ring kit from http://cycleorings.com?

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[makenzie71]

Yeah last night I fully disassembled them and went back with new o-rings and gaskets.

She fires up as soon as you hit the button...sometimes it almost seems as though she starts in anticipation of you hitting the button.

I'll have to sift over the igniter tests afterwhile.

[makenzie71]

Whoops meant to come back with a resolution to this problem. My plug wires are dry rotted and bad and were arcing against...of all the lovely things...my gas tank. I wrapped them with heavy vinyl tape and it's bandaided the problem. I need coils with replaceable wires.

[Hornswaggle]

Mine runs just fine on two cylinders, I'm just sayin'.........

[makenzie71]

Yeah but yours came from the factory 2 cylinders short.