Coil Life

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Diablouph

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Feb 9, 2009
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I know that capacitors have a shelf life, used or not. Do Coils? What is a reasonable life span, assuming they eat right, get regular exercise, and don't smoke?
 
My bike still has the original coils, though it only had 3741 miles on it when I got it. Coming up on 12,000 :wink:
 
My anecdotal experience, across brands, is that all ignition components, especially coils, wires, and plugs, are really good candidates for replacement based on time/mileage, regardless of how good they've worked to date....
 
There's nothing inherently time dependant in the life of a coil. It's insulated copper wire wound on a laminated iron core.
 
The Lucas coils on my '69 Trident are original and still work fine. They are mounted in rubber under the seat, and not clamped like the Commando coils. I've seen a few Commando coils get squashed by over tightening, and not work so great or fail altogether.
 
I've had three 6-volt coils fail in thirty-eight years and roughly 480,000 miles on my '72 Combat. With points you can limp home on the tollway at about 70 mph with a dead cylinder. The coils usually fail completely--lights out--and it doesn't seem to matter whether they're crimped or not.


Tim Kraakevik
kraakevik@voyager.net
Three Commandos
 
Hard to argue with Tim's results! :lol:

I have the original coils in my 750 and they're still doing just fine. I put PVL coils in my 850 when I built it up because the original coils were badly crimped. A DPO really did a number on them. I bought the bike as a non-runner, took one look at the coils, and tossed them in the junk parts box.

Debby
 
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