79 XS11 Coils

[AndyHartvig]

Help! I think that the coils on the bike that I just got are bad. Can anyone tell me what the best way to go on this is, whether it be used or if I can buy new somewhere? I don't have a lot of money to be doing this buy "as is" stuff and not being sure if they work or not so if I buy I would like them to be new or at least tested. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[natemoen]

Have you tested yours yet?

With multimeter set to ohms and the spark plug caps off check the ohms of on of the coils by putting the meter leads to the end of the plug wires, should be 15,000 +/- 10%. Now check the other coil the same way.

Now check each plug cap, touch one lead where the plug goes and the other where the wire goes. If they are the stock plug caps it should read 5,000.

Now go back to the coils and check the small wires, should read 1.5 +/- 10%.

Let us know what you get.

[DGXSER]

Check the coils, and then the pickup coils. The pickup coils are more likely than the ignition coils.

There are several options available for coils. I would suggest you get either the Mikes XS grren coils, accell coils or the like. Another option is the VF1000 coils, but those are also used so buyer beware issue.

[petejw]

hi andy,
what makes u think they are bad?
are you getting spark to all plugs?
its usually unusual for both coils to go bad at the same time.

other than what nate mentioned,
u can trim a little off the end of the plug wires and make sure the caps are
clean and corrosion free,
make sure ur getting 12 volts to the red/white wires on the positive side of the coil,
and be sure the tilt over switch under the tank is sitting upright.

[AndyHartvig]

The reason we came to the conclusion that they are both bad is that we had no spark to any plugs. The bike was my father-in-laws and has been sitting for about 15 years and he and I are trying to get it running again. Just looking for suggestions.

Thanks!

[petejw]

no worries,
theres a few things above for u 2 suss out,
the tip over switch as mentioned has caught a few
others out in the past, let us know how u go after the above checks.

also make sure u have a strong battery charge.

[cywelchjr]

Good call Pete. After sitting for a long time, sometimes spending at least a part of that time sitting at more than 60Deg angle, the tipover switch can stick in the engaged setting. If you just unplug it, that bypasses it for testing purposes to eliminate that as a possible problem. If that is the problem, it's generally easy to disassemble and clean it so it works properly, it's a good safety feature to have working on the bike, and I don't recommend not having it (yes I know other bikes don't have it, but having something that will shut off the engine if the bike comes over on you and you can't for some reason reach the kill switch could be worth a limb). These have enough power and torque to chew your leg off if they keep running, the tipover switch if working will prevent that, but if stuck can keep the bike from starting in the first place, so when troubleshooting a no fire situation, it can be useful to unplug it from the harness to take it out of the picture.