1981 XS1100 Midnight Special Slow restoration

[cajun31]

One other thing I forgot to tell you. If your carbs were flooding make sure you check your oil. That gas can run down into the oil as well. It sounds like it went in the airbox, the opposite direction but I would still check the oil level smell to be sure. An oil filter and fluid change should be on your check list anyway. Those as well as all the other fluids in the bike. The middle and final drive fluids.

[normalthom]

Damn, that's a mountain of great information. Thanks for sharing!!

[Medumdum]

Sorry for the slow updates, had to wait on parts to come in and holidays also took up some time. I got the carbs put back together with new needles and seats, as well as bowl gaskets and no more leaks. Bike was able to fire up and stay running but it wasn’t really running right. Turns out the middle two cylinders weren’t firing. Checked for spark, no spark, and they’re both running off the same coil. Checked coil, and there’s a short, no resistance in the primary coil. Got a new coil on the way. As far as brakes go, I got the front right caliper rebuilt, but waiting on buying the rebuild kit for the rear since it’s a bit pricier than the fronts and property taxes are coming up. The cylinders for both seem to be in decent shape, bike was only sitting 2 years and before that it seems like it was pretty well taken care of.

Edit: just realized I tested the coil incorrectly, so it might not be bad and I need to look further downstream into the ignition system, but at least I know where to look.

[Medumdum]

One other thing I forgot to tell you. If your carbs were flooding make sure you check your oil. That gas can run down into the oil as well. It sounds like it went in the airbox, the opposite direction but I would still check the oil level smell to be sure. An oil filter and fluid change should be on your check list anyway. Those as well as all the other fluids in the bike. The middle and final drive fluids.

Oh yeah, I did check oil level and it’s good, no fuel smell either. Fluids were all on the plan before getting it on the road proper for sure, as well as plugs, currently there’s some NGK and some champion plugs, I’ll probably just get 4 new NGKs when I do the oil as well.

[DEEBS11]

Medumdum, the coil is just like the name, a coil of wire. About 3 ohms which is almost a short when measured with a meter. Beware of the new coil(s) you ordered as they are more than likely Chinese junk if they are less than $150.00. Dyna coils (not Chinese copies) are the way to go. Your two cylinder not firing could very likely be a broken wire on the lower left side of the motor in the timing advance unit. This is a common area of failure. It could also simply be a dirty connector in the harness. As you suggested, I would change that oil before I ran the motor anymore. It's old and it's status is unknown.

https://xs11.club/forum/repairs/batt...ders-misfiring

[DEEBS11]

Here is an example of a garbage part. I had a similar coil on my KZ750B sidecar rig and it died (opened circuit) in the middle of an intersection during rush hour. I'm sure the wire inside the coil was as thin as human hair to save money. Complete junk.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27343565800...Bk9SR4KgmbOcYw

[DEEBS11]

More on cheap coils

https://xs11.club/forum/modification...tion-coils-bad

[Medumdum]

Did some more testing, both the coils are good, I swapped the 2-3 coil to 1-4 and bike fired up, so then I swapped the pickup pins on the TCI box and still could only get spark on 1-4, 2-3 no spark, so I’m guessing it’s the pickups or wiring to them then.

I’ve bought a dyna coil for a goldwing before and had to splice the wiring in myself, do they sell a plug and play coil for these bikes for down the line? I would rather not have to cut up the wiring on this bike anymore than I have to. I couldn’t find any OE coils for sale, only used ones or third party. I don’t need them this time thankfully, but would be nice to have a decent one picked out for if the coils go bad.

[Medumdum]

Found this and it talks about pretty much the issue I think I have, but the pictorial they linked to no longer works. I can see how to replace/fix the wires, but I wanted to know how I could properly test it to make sure before I started cutting up wires.

[DEEBS11]

These are real Dyna coils 3 ohm. You will need to fab brackets & high tension wires & eliminate the ballast resistor.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/361334844121

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANYAa2LIh4

[DEEBS11]

Here is my account of the modification

https://xs11.club/forum/idle-talk-fo...-project/page5

[DEEBS11]

More on your spark problem

https://xs11.club/forum/idle-talk-fo...ver-the-winter

[Medumdum]

More on your spark problem

https://xs11.club/forum/idle-talk-fo...ver-the-winter

Looked at the forum, haven’t finished it but the guy there had no spark at all, so it’s talking about stuff that isn’t really relevant. I do have spark, but only on 1-4. Bike will run, just on 2 cylinders, middle exhaust pipes stayed cold, outer two got hot, no spark on cylinders 2-3. I swapped the pins on the TCI connector that comes from the pickups, still only got spark on 1-4, leading me to believe I have an issue in the wiring of the 2-3 pickup to the TCI or the pickup itself.

I’m just looking for a way to get the wiring off the pickup to test continuity/resistance between there and the TCI to see if I just need to fix the wiring or find a new pickup.

I did test continuity from the TCI plug to the ignition coil connector and both the grey and orange pins do have continuity, so shouldn’t be an issue in that wiring.

edit: to clarify, coils are also both good, swapped them around and both have good spark, but would only spark when connected to the circuit connected to the 1-4 pickup, even when switching the pickup input pins on the TCI connector.

[Medumdum]

I just wasn’t googling hard enough I guess, I finally found this video and it showed me what I needed. I just gotta plug my multimeter leads into the connector from the pickup at the TCI and measure the resistance between the ground pin and the orange/grey pins, then jiggle the wire to see if the resistance changes or if there’s a break all together. Sadly I’m at work now so I’ll have to wait till tomorrow to test it properly.

[bikerphil]

Unplug the 4 pin connector on the TCI and check for 720 ohms between pairs while jiggling the wires down at the ignition plate. They usually break internally where they are clamped. That video you posted is for a 750, 3 cylinder which is different.