Cylinder Not Firing

[Anonymous]

I have an 82 GS550L and I have a cylinder that isnt firing. I have a coil coming, it will be here by the end of the week, and I am replacing the plugs. After this, if the coil and plugs dont do the trick, what else could be causing this? Also any tips on adjusting the timing would be appreciated. Thanks


Craig

[moto_dan]

Re: Cylinder Not Firing

I have an 82 GS550L and I have a cylinder that isnt firing. I have a coil coming, it will be here by the end of the week, and I am replacing the plugs. After this, if the coil and plugs dont do the trick, what else could be causing this? Also any tips on adjusting the timing would be appreciated. Thanks


Craig

You stated that you have "a" cylinder that isn't firing. You do know that you have 2 coils suppling spark to 4 cylinders so was the other cylinder being serviced by the suspected bad coil firing? If you have a bad coil then two cylinders should not be firing. It could be as simple as a bad spark plug boot.

[Anonymous]

have you detrmened that you dont have spark? I just got my bike running('81 GS650GLX) only on two cylinders though. I checked my plugs and they spark when I turn the bike over. So I know that the problom is junk in my carbs, which I have cleaned twice now. so what I did was put carb cleaning gas aditive in my gas fired up the bike and let it sit. the bike runs better now. So what I am trying to say is check for spark before you put that coil on cause maybe you can send it back.

[Anonymous]

I do have a bad plug boot, the plug that isnt firing, has a hole in the boot right around the tip of the spark plug, but for my bike, you cant just buy a new wire, you have to buy a whole new coil. And it is just the one cylinder that is not firing.

[Bert Patterson]

I do have a bad plug boot, the plug that isnt firing, has a hole in the boot right around the tip of the spark plug, but for my bike, you cant just buy a new wire, you have to buy a whole new coil. And it is just the one cylinder that is not firing.

Search around this site - one of these Mr. Smartpants' described the whole process of replacing a plug wire without replacing the coil. If the coil's good, you don't need to replace just because the wire's bad.

[Hotblack]

Also, the boots alone look like they come off. I've had one off (had a big chunk missing when I got it), I just pryed the little rubber boot off of the top of the plug boot with my fingers, it came off easily. There's a ridged probe that appears to just stick into the plug wire, making contact with the wire strands. I also see that Dennis Kirk has NGK boots that look like they will work fine here, so I'm looking at replacing it - although the bike runs fine, I'm betting rain will cause unpleasant things to happen. It'd be cool to know how to replace the wires though, so I'm going to look up Mr. Smartpants!

[Bert Patterson]

Also, the boots alone look like they come off. I've had one off (had a big chunk missing when I got it), I just pryed the little rubber boot off of the top of the plug boot with my fingers, it came off easily. There's a ridged probe that appears to just stick into the plug wire, making contact with the wire strands. I also see that Dennis Kirk has NGK boots that look like they will work fine here, so I'm looking at replacing it - although the bike runs fine, I'm betting rain will cause unpleasant things to happen. It'd be cool to know how to replace the wires though, so I'm going to look up Mr. Smartpants!

Okay, let's see......don't really look up Mr. Smartpants. There is no Mr. Smartypants. I was just referring to the fact that there are a lot of extremely knowledgeable folks (not me, though) and not long ago, one of them (don't recall who) described the process of replacing plug wires. Just try a variety of word searches.

[daveo]

NGK makes screw-on replacement sparkplug wire ends

[brs127s]

Here is a link to the post on replacing the original plug wires.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/viewtopic.php?t=797&highlight=plug+wire

[Dink]

That is correct the "caps" are replacable on these bikes you just pull the old one off and push a new one on, I did mine just over a year ago.
Dink

[redliner1973]

Did all 4 on my Suzi, 1/2 hour and 32 bucks....Just for S&^%'s and grins, i ohmed out the new and old ones, and what a difference it was..... :twisted: