Went for a ride the other day about 60 miles parked up and a couple of hours later found the bike wouldn't start either kickstart or pushing and ended up having to truck it home. Read the little Tri-spark manual with the tests to check out the unit and everything seemed fine. cleaned carbys checked the valve clearances. still wouldn't start so put some 'Start ya Bastard' down the plugholes still wouldn't start so finally tried kicking it over with the plugs connected and lying on the head, absolutely no sign of a spark, did the Trispark test again and it did what it was supposed to with the plugs firing rapidly and strongly. HELP!
Tri-spark not sparking
- Thread starter edward
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A poor/intermittent connection somewhere seems a likely place to start looking, including the kill switch…
FWIW, the plug on the head test is the first test I usually perform if a vehicle won't start unless there is some other obvious symptom - out of gas, etc.
FWIW, the plug on the head test is the first test I usually perform if a vehicle won't start unless there is some other obvious symptom - out of gas, etc.
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I have had a trispark since they first came out
had the same problem you have
you say the plugs do not spark when out and grounded to the head and kicking the motor over
has to be either bad ground or something blocking live current from getting to the plugs
assuming your plug leads and coil are ok, I would first take a piece or wire and attach it to the negative battery terminal (pos ground) and the other end of wire to the trispark live source bypassing the keyed ignition, kill button, everything in the existing wiring harness
then do the plugs on head test again, if they spark and bike starts you know the problem is not the trispark but in your wiring
had the same problem you have
you say the plugs do not spark when out and grounded to the head and kicking the motor over
has to be either bad ground or something blocking live current from getting to the plugs
assuming your plug leads and coil are ok, I would first take a piece or wire and attach it to the negative battery terminal (pos ground) and the other end of wire to the trispark live source bypassing the keyed ignition, kill button, everything in the existing wiring harness
then do the plugs on head test again, if they spark and bike starts you know the problem is not the trispark but in your wiring
The later Tri-sparks have a 'test feature' which is supposed to test basically the whole system, you press a switch with the end of a pen and if the plugs start firing immediately at a rising rate for 10 seconds when you turn the ignition on then everything is supposed to be OK. My bike does this but no sign of spark when kicking it over. There is no kill switch on my bike only the ignition and if this wasn't operable then the above test wouldn't work?
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Anonymous
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Try new sparkplugs.
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Anonymous
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edward said:
...and 60 miles later you have spark problems - another new set, even the old working set, will eliminate spark plugs as a variable.
Do you have resistor caps as recommended by trispark as your current plugs are not resistor types?
needing said:
I will try the old set tomorrow but while I accept one plug could be faulty surely not both of them plus they spark readily when using the test mode. I bought the recommended supressor plugs when I bought the unit about a year ago. I have sent an email to Stephen Kelly at Trispark and hope he may be able to shed some light on the problem.
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edward said:
Those are NON-resistor plugs. Not sure if that would fry the unit tho. Should have resistor wires / caps to run with those plugs.
Check to see if the rotor has slipped off the proper timing position.
Old Norton coils or Trispark coil unit?
Battery being fully charged while riding?
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Anonymous
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Only plug caps are to be resistor types. Plugs should not be resistor type. Plug leads should be wire (ala jap plug leads) and not resistor carbon leads.
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Battery in good conditiontomspro said:
It is the most recent model with test mode. What I need to know is why the plugs fire when in test mode but don't fire at all when using kick starter with plugs out and resting on head. Still waiting to hear back from Stephen Kelly at Trispark.
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Hello All
Had the same problem on a run, when I took the tank off, found the wire between the coils had come adrift, put back on perfect! The next time, the day before yesterday, found the black/white wire at the tri-spark had seperated rejoined again perfect! Check all connections in the ignition system.
Best of luck, Peter.
Had the same problem on a run, when I took the tank off, found the wire between the coils had come adrift, put back on perfect! The next time, the day before yesterday, found the black/white wire at the tri-spark had seperated rejoined again perfect! Check all connections in the ignition system.
Best of luck, Peter.
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Anonymous
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needing said:
Expansion on resistor theme: choose one resistor type only. Do not use combinations and definitely do not use all three. The resistor plug caps is the better of the three options as they do not restrict your choice and use of plug types and/or brands (and are easily swapped out if you choose to fit the resistor plugs that LAB quotes).
Enjoy!
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needing said:
The plug mentioned in the quote from the Tri-Spark Q & A section was purely incidental. Due to the prevalence of 'R" plugs nowadays, I wouldn't agree that the use of non-resistor caps is likely to restrict the choice of plugs.
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