Addie & I

[MaximPhil]

are still on speaking terms. However we are not sleeping together to night
After work Gary C and I headed for Port Dover for the Friday 13th event.
Warm under blue skies. Traffic was heavy that late in the day but we had a good ride choosing some scenic roads to get there.
After wandering around and looking at bikes and merchandise we had something to eat and headed home. within a few miles it started to rain . light at first but eventually got quite heavy. Addie lost ignition to two cyclinders. I swear she said: Keep me over 4,000 rpm and we can make it home to the dry garage. If you stop i will not have the energy to go on
So we pressed on. Every briidge had a gaggle of Harleys huddled under it
At 200km had to switch to reserve and shortly after parting from Gary's route she ran out of gas at 217 km. walked to the gas station and back with a jerry can of gas. 5 km later she pop and banged and died and refused to go any further. To night she is under her cover at a gas station $30 taxi ride from home. To Morrow i will see if I can get her running with the parts I have available. I will not take the matches as most of the parts don't evem belong to me
Phil

[DAVINCI]

Sorry to hear Addie is giving you trouble again. You may want to drain the carbs from the bowls, it's possible you got some rain in the tank? I say that because reserve should have given you much more than 17 km

[xsroadrunner]

Sounds more like an electrical short from getting wet. My XJ has never died in the rain but has cut ot two cylinders if I tried to accelerate in aheavy rain. Also sorry to hear this Phil...

[planedick]

Two things

First one is the neutral switch, gets dirty and then when wet effects ignition, but not when neutral. Next is the high tension wires where they come out of the coils. Mine had cracked there and when it rains the water gets in there and causes problems as it also get dirty and water makes a perfect conductor. I had these problems clean the area and had to seal the cracks in the wires with silicone to fix the problem. Glad I found the problem before this long trip as I'm sure to encounter rain.

[tinman905]

Phil brought me his bike with the same problem. When we sprayed water on the left side (no problems) then the right side of the engine with the tank on and it started to act up. I removed the tank and cleaned and treated every connector with dielectric grease. I sprayed it down again with the tank off and there was no improvement. I changed all four plug caps and poured the water to it again and it ran fine the water had no effect on the ignition system. I put the water to it again the next day and it was fine again.
I was under the impression that he had this problem with his previous set of coils but he informed me this was not the case so the next step is replacing the coils that were originally on his bike.

This has been one crazy ride for all of us . The bike runs fine for me all week Phil takes it home and we wait for the email , post or phone call. He's ready to give up . I was hoping we could work on the paint this season as Addie looks as bad as she runs now .

Many of us have tore our bikes apart and put it all back together with next to no problems. Phil really was burned on the purchase of this bike and I feel for him as he wasn't expecting this transition up to a XS1100 to be so much trouble. He was wanting a "Big Boy Bike" but was sold a lemon.

BDF really worked hard rebuilding the engine over the winter that Addie was saved from the junkyard . With the help of myself and a few others down south Phil should have a reliable bike by now. It's just one thing after another . I hope he can get all the bugs worked out soon as the second gear is ready to go any day now "Lemon" may just be an understatement

[jetmechmarty]

I can send the gears I removed from my bike if that will help. I replaced my gears with new rather than attempt the "Dremel fix". I think I can post them out on Monday before I go back on the road. PM the address where they go.

[tinman905]

I can send the gears I removed from my bike if that will help. I replaced my gears with new rather than attempt the "Dremel fix". I think I can post them out on Monday before I go back on the road. PM the address where they go.

That's nice Marty thanks for the offer I have a set here Phil can have .
I am about one hour from Phil and I was just talking to him and he is removing the new (old ) set of coils and replacing them with the set that was previously on his bike and see if that fixes the problem.

[M4sherman]

I had the same problem when I was riding my VN750 back from a 50 mile cruise,though, in my case it was the stator going out but that is most likly not the case here. Have you tried removing the fuel tank and running the bike in pitch dark? the reason I ask is I was having issues with misfires on my vulcan and when I did the night test it looked like a christmas tree with all of the pretty lights. Now If the night test comes up with no lights then My next guess it to clean all of your connections.

Dont feel bad about your bike giving you hell. my VN was a contemplation of one running bike that looked like hell and one good-looker with a busted timing chain. The first tear down was simply replacing the wheels,tires,tank and fenders but soon after it was all back together I found out the forks where bent. after a couple of days of tearing down and reassembling the bikes for the fork swap my throttle cables busted so that required alot of cussing and blood to swap.

At this time she was running good but I thought this was the weakest bike on the planet, which was contrary to everything I have ever read upon about the VN750's but I figured I would deal with it. but by a stroke of luck I was siting out side in the middle of the evening when we had a black out and wouldn't you know the bike looked like a Christmas tree from all of the sparks dancing around the engine turns out I should have checked the fire on the rear cylinder because she didnt have any on either of the spark plugs . after a quick lesson on how NOT to test fire on a bike with dual plugs on each cylinder (think about a nice flame thrower) I added some tape to the plug wires and we where ready to rock

Now after that incident I was able to ride the bike for a week before I noticed my breaks where shot.So once again I had her back in the shop yanking off the break calipers and master cylinder and trying my best to get them to tighten up. two quarts of brake fluid later we where back on the road UNTIL I was driving along and the bike started to die. I decided my best course of action was to keep the old girl at a high RPM until I got home. We made it and then began the wholly hell of the electrical system.

Now on the VN's you have to yank half of the bike apart to get to the electrical systems unless you have the hands of a 10 year old girl (which is where my sister came in) and after a quick parts swap I was road ready again!...until night fall. turns out after all of that work A:the RPM gauge quite working B:the headlight gave out . one flashlight,two cops and 15 miles later I was in the shop banging around trying to fix the front end of the bike. after a little google-kung-foo and supplying my brother with 21+ beverages we managed to get the old girl ready to ride.

And ride we did. I clocked 500 miles the first week followed by 250 more before I ended up having to push the bike a mile in full riding gear on a nice cool "august" day in Memphis Turns out the stator was Fubared and I would have to yank the engine out to replace it . well finally I decided to take and pay $700 to have it replaced by the dealer. and after a short period of 4.5 months I go in and they tell me she will not fire on the rear cylinder. As I inspect the bike they tell my the CDI box is bad and it will cost $500 to replace it but luckily I had a spare at the house but as it turns out both where infact good as new. after a little arguing the two of there best mechanics going over the bike we dicided I would load it up and they would take 50% of of the bill for the stator since the bike was running great when she went in. turns out it was a dirty connection that took me less than 15 min to find and fix

Now believe it of not I have come to love my bike a little more after each incident (except for the pushing in august) and I can say I actually enjoyed working on it as much as I enjoy riding her besides if it was a H/D I would have had twice the trouble

What i am trying to say is dont addies little PMS spat bring you down because you know you enjoy turning the old girls wrenches as much as you like riding her hard any ways hope you two get back on good terms before to long. And what ever you do DO NOT GIVE UP!

[tinman905]

What i am trying to say is dont addies little PMS spat bring you down because you know you enjoy turning the old girls wrenches as much as you like riding her hard any ways hope you two get back on good terms before to long. And what ever you do DO NOT GIVE UP!

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Phil over the last couple of years and i can say without any doubt Phil does not like "wrenching " any bike let alone "Addie" . He will ride to the "hubs of hell" and back before he will take a wrench to "Addie"

[mack]

coils

I have a new set of coils I haven't taken out of the box yet. I got them for diagnostic's but I haven't had any trouble yet so I haven't had to open the box. If you want to use them for diagnotic trouble shooting, come on down and pick them up. I would like them back though when your done. New plug caps as well.

[MaximPhil]

Hi All, Thanks for all the suggestions and encouragement. we are home again. The original coils installed once more. They were in the saddle bag wraped in plastic. time will tell if they are good in the rain.
Addie smoked like a two stroke for a couple of miles to clear all the lubrication that was left in the dead cylinders. The Petro Canada gas station was very understanding and even gave me a free coffee when I came dripping into the store I still have to go and get my car,just waiting for a friend to come over.
Phil

[earl G]

wet bike

phil, i had the same problem with my bike on the key west rally. ran on two cyclinders. yes you do get bad gas milage, real bad. top speed 50 mph. installed new coils and plug wires. that worked for a bit. then this year we hit rain again and started to miss. so don that was riding with us said that the fairing was dumping the water right on the outside plugs, so got some black rtv silicone and he sealed the plug wire caps and plugs. the next time it rain and it was hard. did not have a problem.

[mrsixtysix]

At least she is home....

[b.walker5]

I had a similair problem with one of my XS750's years ago. Would act up exactly as you describe, except it would alternate between one and all three. Took ages to track it down and it turned out to be a cracked ballast resistor that would short to earth in the rain. Bypassed it and it never done it again.

Never had the problem on the 1100 but it's worth a look.

[WMarshy]

Sorry if this is redundant as I didn't read the entire post but... check this connection with the 2 red/white wires connect to the double female connector... they feed the coils...



They are right under the front of the tank...