UPDATE: 79 GW 1000, no spark on right side both cylinders

[Rocker79]

didnt run bike for about a month, started up to take a short cruise, ran rough, came home and found right side cylinders not firing.. Pulled plug wires off and nothing, no spark.. left side fine.. any ideas?
Plugs not fouled, gas is good.
Has electronic ignition.

Update 1: Mechanic checked spark, both sides firing, Adjusted carbs and replaced Floats. Replaced plugs and plug wires, continuing to check out, haven't found exactly why its running rough.

Update 2: Got an offer to buy my bike while still at the mechanics shop and took it. So for me, problem solved.

Thank you all for the advice and help while i had the bike for the last few years, much appreciated, this is a great forum.
Gary

[robin1731]

Dealing with two different coils and ignition modules there. It's possible one half of each coil went bad at the same time but not likely.

I'd start with the easy stuff. Put new plugs in it.

.

[gltriker]

Did something chew through the sparkplug wire insulation on those 2 adjacent, affected cylinders?

[Rocker79]

I put new plugs in it. No spark to the right side.

[robin1731]

I put new plugs in it. No spark to the right side.

So then you keep working your way up the plug wires/coils/ignitors/ignition module. Starting with the caps. As gltriker said something may have chewed the wires. But nothing in the ignition ties the two plugs on the same side together.

.

[yawjansen]

Had the same problem and fixed it by changing out my old coils, wires and caps. Could be the "black magic" where your points used to be as well...Could try swapping wires to opposite sides to verify function.

[Paola Zago]

hello, tell us your GL has electronic ignition. to a friend of mine, with GL and Dyna electronic ignition, the same thing happened and the mechanic said that an (irreplaceable) ignition pick-up had burned out! as it costs a lot, he decided to put back the original ignition with points and had no more problems.
Paola (Italy)

[Rocker79]

Thanks for the advice guys, ill let you know what i find out.

[ericheath]

You say no spark. If you checked at plug, ignore what I write, but if you say no spark, but mean, the right side is not igniting based on temperature of exhaust:

Any chance your wires have become crossed? One coil and it’s source of trigger (electronic or points) fires the front cylinder’s, one coil fires the back cylinders. (This is what Robin was saying above)

Follow your wires up to the coils and make sure they are routed correctly.

Almost all other four cylinder bikes are wired 1-3 on a coil and 2-4 on the other. The Wing is different. 1-2 and 3-4.

[robin1731]

You say no spark. If you checked at plug, ignore what I write, but if you say no spark, but mean, the right side is not igniting based on temperature of exhaust:

Any chance your wires have become crossed? One coil and it’s source of trigger (electronic or points) fires the front cylinder’s, one coil fires the back cylinders. (This is what Robin was saying above)

Follow your wires up to the coils and make sure they are routed correctly.

Almost all other four cylinder bikes are wired 1-3 on a coil and 2-4 on the other. The Wing is different. 1-2 and 3-4.

I believe "most" inline 4 cylinders bikes are 1/4 on one coil, 2/3 on the other. That is the way Kawasaki did it on the KZ900/1000. But yes, a GL 4 cylinder is 1/2, 3/4.

.

[redglbx]

Have you checked the spark plug caps ? They should be less than 5k ohms, like around 4.7-4.9k ohms. The reason I ask is that I am redoing an 82 cb750f that once I rebuilt the carbs it was still running badly so I pulled and measured all the plug caps & found the center 2 (different coils) measured completely open. First time I’ve seen them to be completely open.

So on your wing being that the rh side ( #1 & 3) do NOT share anything in the ignition & both have no spark it can only be either bad spark plug caps or the spark plug wires.

#’s 1&3 each use a different coil and a different set of points or pickup modules and being the LH set (#’s 2&4) have spark the coils and points/modules have to be good. Has to be either the plug caps or the wires.

[Gowing]

Wonder what the cause was?

[Sidecar Bob]

<< so I pulled and measured all the plug caps & found the center 2 (different coils) measured completely open. First time I’ve seen them to be completely open.>>

I recently tested some CX/GL500/650 caps that someone was interested in from the Cheap Parts I'm trying to get rid of before I have to clean up the garage so the car can park indoors for the winter and found the same thing. At first I thought it was bad resistors but even with them opened up and the insides cleaned there was no continuity between the screw that goes into the wire and the inside of the cap. I've never seen anything like that before either.

[gltriker]

didnt run bike for about a month, started up to take a short cruise, ran rough, came home and found right side cylinders not firing.. Pulled plug wires off and nothing, no spark.. left side fine.. any ideas?
Plugs not fouled, gas is good.
Has electronic ignition.

Wonder what the cause was?

from Rocker67's profile: he was Last active:Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:43 am

[Sidecar Bob]

That's only 2 weeks ago.....