electronic ignition failed...i think

I have a boyer electronic ignition on my 74' 850 commando. It's been good for 5 years but I think the power box has failed. I'm not great with electrical but here is what I think happend. I was ridding and bike started to sputter on one cylinder and died on the side of the road. My phone was dead and I was real hung over. Anyway, a long walk later and when I got the bike home I saw I lost a bolt on my right carb manifold so the right cylinder was not firing for a good half mile before the bike died. Would only sparking one cylinder for that time short the black box out on my boyer ignition? I have power from wiresgoing to box but not coming out of the box. Probably a dumb question but I don't want to buy a new box if I should run other tests first.

thanks,

the electrically challenged

I don't see losing a bolt out of a manifold would have any effect on an Electronic Ignition, it is going to keep both plugs sparking together regardless.

You can easily verify your Boyer is working just fine by taking the plugs out and putting the leads back on and then hold them with the plug threads grounded against the head while your assistant kicks the bike over with ignition on. You should see both plugs sparking in your dark garage at the time, if not then ok you have a problem somewhere and not necessarily with the boyer, could well be battery or wiring.

But do the dark garage test first so you know your boyer is firing.

I should have mentioned when I lost the blot on the the carb, the carb was hanging down allowing to much air in possibly killing the spark. first thing I tried was checking the spark in a dark garage but nothing. I have power to my lights and all still though

The bouncing carb or you fuzzing with carb might of disturbed power or ground wires or maybe the extra vibe imbalance finished breaking the trigger wires inside insulation but the boyah would still spark both plugs regardless of carb on or not. A bad black box bayah can not just fire one side w/o the other as both plugs and coils are part of the full circuit flow with 2 spark gaps in line to cross. Maybe shorting in the HT lead so sparks before the plug gap. After dark checks is just more bonding and worshiping time flicking at trigger wires and kill etc.

Test each plug on head by simply earthing the plug then switch the ignition on and off. As you turn the ignition off the plug should fire just as if triggered by pick up. If only one plug fires then coil, HT lead or plug are suspect.

You'll probably find the ignition is fine and once you replace the bolt and snug up the manifold all will be well again.

Same thing happened to me on a road trip years ago. They don't run very well with a carb falling off!

Wow, you got a lot going on there. Take a couple of aspirin and go out to the bike with a handful of wrenches and tighten up everything.
Go around the whole bike. You might be surprised.
Hope your ignition is good but I think the hanging carb will cause some issues.

I had a very frustrating somewhat similiar ignition problem with my boyer. after much troubleshooting and getting abandoned on side of road from dying norton, I discovered that one of my pick up coils under the points cover was bad. How did i know this? there is a specific resistance check for those coils when they are cold. Its not in the installation instructions, you have to go to the boyer website. But I belive it was 66ohms each. One of mine was 69 or 70. thats all it takes for a random misfire apparently. My symptons were like this; I could start from cold no problem and warm her up, after on the road for 15 or 20 minutes i would get a missfire then eventually the one cylinder would barely fire.
You can buy just the pick coil plate separatly, which i did. set the timing and it hasent misfired once since.

run a seperate hot wire directly from the battery to the black box hot wire and see if the spark returns. If it does you have other headaches besides a hangover......... :lol:

Tim_S