Tornado
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- Joined
- Dec 5, 2017
- Messages
- 4,774
Had my Commando at our BritBike Owner's club BBQ on Saturday....bikes had to park up in a light but steady rain. After few hours of jaw wagging, time to head home. The other Commando fired up after few kicks. Mine did not. Maybe a few sputters here and there then nothing more after many many attempts. Checked for sparks, none to be seen. Battery, fuse & switch all good as lights/horn etc all working fine. Tried a different, never used spark plug someone had handy...still no spark across the gap. The decades of experienced classic brit bike owners on hand started to point the finger at my Vape-Wassell EI, which has been flawless since install some 6 yrs ago. Odd it would choose the first wet weather the bike has ever seen in this same 6 year period to give up the ghost? After more volunteers with fresher legs gave more kicks, we restorted to trying bump starts...but gave up after all runners were left panting for air following 4 or 5 attempts. We did have a very brief few pops out of bump runs then nothing more. One more spark plug out check, poor chap holding plug to cylinder head got a good shock in his hand...but still no sparks seen where they counted.
So I was consoled to await an auto club hauler to get me the 35 minutes down the road to home.
Upon arriving back home, gave everything a good spray down with WaterDispersant-40 and didn't have time until two days later to proceed with further investigations. Decided to first pull plugs once again to confirm the no spark issue....but that test proved to be a pass with flying colours...both plugs happily sparking away, with no other changes. Put plugs back in, gave her a tickle and she fired up second kick just like usual. So the EI was good after all. Now I'm just left with understand what was the cause.
I was running old school looking braided cloth wrapped over insulated copper wire HT leads. I'm thinking water might have wicked/seeped its way under the rubber coil end boots or plug end caps and either gave a short to ground or perhaps made too high a resistance btwn copper wire and coil or plug end crimped on metal terminals.
Other potential culprits?
So I was consoled to await an auto club hauler to get me the 35 minutes down the road to home.
Upon arriving back home, gave everything a good spray down with WaterDispersant-40 and didn't have time until two days later to proceed with further investigations. Decided to first pull plugs once again to confirm the no spark issue....but that test proved to be a pass with flying colours...both plugs happily sparking away, with no other changes. Put plugs back in, gave her a tickle and she fired up second kick just like usual. So the EI was good after all. Now I'm just left with understand what was the cause.
I was running old school looking braided cloth wrapped over insulated copper wire HT leads. I'm thinking water might have wicked/seeped its way under the rubber coil end boots or plug end caps and either gave a short to ground or perhaps made too high a resistance btwn copper wire and coil or plug end crimped on metal terminals.
Other potential culprits?
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