RAINDEAD

My 1982 GL1100i loses spark in the front two cylinders every time it rains, and after getting a good soaking last saturday (it rained while I was asleep) I have no spark in any cylinder. I've already replaced the plugs, wires, and ignition coils. Just ordered igniters, ignition module, pulse generators, and wiring harness (being THOROUGH because this is my only way to work).

Is there anything else that could possibly be causing this? Any hidden fuses other than the small glass tube-type and the 30A main fuse by the starter solenoid? I'm also considering a C5 ignition system since I don't have the option of dropping the engine to get to the factory ignition.

Also shortly after I bought the bike the three yellow wires coming from the stator overheated and melted in half, which I believe was just due to the guy I bought it from using inadequate crimp-on plug connections that were too narrow for the amperage. And my three month old starter solenoid is already dead, conspicuously at the same time that the spark stopped. New starter motor spins healthily, though, if solenoid is um...bypassed...with a screwdriver but the cylinders don't even attempt to sputter even with starter fluid.

Check the main fuse attached to the solenoid. They can look okay but be bad. C5 is a big upgrade in ignition. 75-77 cams make it easier to add the C5 and adds some power too. Check your kill switch too. They get dirty and fail.

opps ok ....stop the buying and start running thing direct to battery to see what powers up or get tester to check things ...there are many switches involve here and the wiring is old ....first up is to see if the stator is working ......replace solenoid .....charge battery good ....you will sp
end a fortune trying to cover all bases ....need good by pass guy to figure this bike out ....seems to me this is what you need some good help

You checked the drain holes in the spark plug wells, maybe filling with water.

Very good chance zman's hit it! :good: Seems to happen more often than people realize. Those holes are pretty small, don't know if one has enough room to drill to a larger size or not, :headscratch: piece of wire will poke hole open, then air through the holes. Happened to me on my first wing, lost one side of the engine, it wouldn't run, got to looking to see why, as most times fire is the first thing to go, and it was! :hihihi:

[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=160117#p160117:3eiabpwf said:

slabghost » 28 minutes ago[/url]":3eiabpwf]
Check the main fuse attached to the solenoid. They can look okay but be bad. C5 is a big upgrade in ignition. 75-77 cams make it easier to add the C5 and adds some power too. Check your kill switch too. They get dirty and fail.

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Main fuse is good. Headlights, turn signals, horn, etc all work. Starter motor spins happily once solenoid is bypassed (or via jumpstart battery straight to starter post & frame). I know I need the GL1000 cam on the left to mount the C5 because I don't want to try and drill/tap my cam. Would I need to replace the right cam also?

zman":3eiabpwf said:

You checked the drain holes in the spark plug wells, maybe filling with water.

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After the last time it rained I realized the weep hole for the #1 cylinder was plugged and cleared it out with a bit of coat-hanger in a power drill. I'd hoped that had been the problem, but it's still happening. Also replaced the after-market plug wires I had on it with OEM wires that had the rubber piece to plug up the spark plug well.

joedrum":3eiabpwf said:

opps ok ....stop the buying and start running thing direct to battery to see what powers up or get tester to check things ...there are many switches involve here and the wiring is old ....first up is to see if the stator is working ......replace solenoid .....charge battery good ....you will sp
end a fortune trying to cover all bases ....need good by pass guy to figure this bike out ....seems to me this is what you need some good help

Click to expand...

Battery was charged overnight, all lights come on, battery voltage checks out, voltage to starter solenoid from starter switch checks out. Ohm meter reading on pulse generator coils is within expected limits (530 on one, 560 on the other). The stator is the one that really scares me because there's no way around dropping the engine for that, but could that cause only one coil to lose fire? Also she's consistently run fine during dry weather, this only happens when she gets wet (and it's staying wet all this week...).

Welcome to the site from New Jersey! :clapping:

Drains holes are a likely issue. If that is not the case, there are other places water can cause issues.

if you change one cam change both. Lift and duration varied through the years. 75-77 cams in an 1100 are like racing cams for the family car.

I would spray all the lead connections with silicon spray or use dielectric grease on them. I felt sure it would be your drain holes also :head bang:

your bike probably has a great motor cause it probably has sat because of the honda user unfriendly tech used from 1980 on and earlier oldwing were not that good either ....there a maze of BS tech anymore i replace all this junk and quit fixing something that was rather crummy on its first day..let alone 40yrs old.....there are huge number of oldwings that wont run in the rain or for days later as it dries out ...in worst cases the ignition can blow up the motor it gets so far off sparking plugs .....had one here do that .....coils crack and really take on moisture ...usually in a hidden spot where mount covers it up.....in general your bike sounds totally infected in about all areas ...tough to decide how to go ....ive done the patch and go to the point im personally done doing that ....others will think different ...ive had my filll of the the old junk system around the motors

What is the condition of your sparkplug wires? The "boots" that keep both plug wires together at the head can contribute to hiding a lot of cracks and also keep in moisture.

There may be tracking evident too, best seen at night when cranking over. I have been on here a while now and the answers you are getting are from some of the sites gurus. but like all have said a bike this old has inherent problems not with breakdown just old age, my body has the same breakdown I am just 64 but in bike years????? 30-40 years is a long time for a 1 or 1.5mm cross section to run error free for that amount of time. So this will be a hard lesson learnt, don't always look at the obvious just because the earth strap is there don't mean it is functioning as it should if your turning over, the spark plugs are out test the things by holding the plug on a earth point and spin it, with all the plugs out it will spin a lot easier. Once that has been established then the next question is is there fuel getting to the carbs. is your fuel pump working? I know I may be teaching your granny to suck eggs but there has to be a reason, no matter how stupid this sounds put your money back in to your pocket and check one system at a time. It is like going to the doc, hey doc I have had this cough for 3 months but it is now getting worse. the first question he is going to ask is "do you smoke". You know where he is going with a loaded question like that, but maybe if he asked you what do you do for a job, well doc I clean out tanker trailers for a living, might just put him on a different track.

So stop spending long bucks in the hope of dive-bombing a solution. cause you might have fixed the problem only you don't know which problem, am I making sense here. one step at a time. You know it can be one of a thousand things stopping your engine running either in or after inclement weather So if it always happen when it is wet you got a 90% chance it is going to be electric. So make a list of what you have checked and cross them off the list.
Top off the list is do all the plugs fire yes or no if yes go onto the next possibility if no well we have already made progress.

I hope you see where I am going with this. You could do 20 tests in maybe 2 hours and not spend a dime, but you eliminated 20 possible problems. Every time you cross one off the list brings you closer to the problem it self.

I hope you get this fixed soon maybe it is time to buy a second bike small whatever to use while you are getting this one sorted, just panicking is going to MAKE you give a LOT of YOUR money to someone I don't trust a shop mechanic and ultimately a parts guy who weren't even alive when you bike was made.

So split you problem on paper. Write down exactly what happens when you try to start the bike. write down the procedure, You don't need to write a novel just some short a sweet words that you understand is happening.
IE
Ignition on, in neutral, is there fuel, okay turn the ignition on and hit the button, Oh you did remember to switch off the kill switch and raise the side stand. That sort of stuff. Like I said I am not trying to teach your granny, but sometimes having a clear head does wonders for the deduction juices. The fact that you have only two hours to get this fixed before you have to go to work is a lot of pressure.

I hope you get this sorted.
Ian

[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=160187#p160187:2o62217u said:

ianstaley » Today, 4:05 pm[/url]":2o62217u]
So stop spending long bucks in the hope of dive-bombing a solution
Ian

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Actually the things I bought this week (ignition module, igniters, wiring harness) totalled less than $200. As an electrician, I'm kind of inclined to believe this is an electircal problem being caused by water giving something an immediate path to ground. Some of your suggested possible problems I can cross off the list from recent events.
A coworker gave me a carburetor that he had sitting in his shop (he's a Harley mechanic who had no use for it and no idea where he got it from so it was free). As I've been tinkering with vacuum synching the carb that was on my bike, I decided last week to swap the carbs out and see if the other one was better or worse and I found the reason whoever had it before took it off their bike: the fuel input o-rings leaked. So yes, the fuel pump works...all over everything...
Also the clear and present smell of unburnt gas after spinning the starter for a few trying to get a sputter, and the fact that the fuel pump is mechanical not electric, and the fact that in all previous instances of this problem at least one cylinder remained firing.

When I first noticed the cylinders dropping out in the rain I wasn't sure if it was related to the not-yet-synched carbs or not, but since each coil supplies two cylinders and the cylinders went out two at a time I swapped the position of the ignition coils to see if the problem switched cylinders (it did not). Finding the ignition coils pretty easy to swap out and inexpensive to replace, I tried swapping them out with new ones. My standpoint on things like this is that when buying a replacement for a part that i'm not sure is faulty or not, the worst case scenario is that it doesn't help, I put the original part back on, and now I have a spare just in case. The only reason I didn't try swapping/replacing the igniters at that point is that I didn't know there was a separate one for each coil. I've also tried unwrapping sections of the wiring harness to check for nicks and/or water, as well as ohming out wires to see if anything other than light bulbs had a path to ground with the key off, but it's a rather tedious process and a replacement wiring harness is not very expensive. As before, if it doesn't solve the problem then at the very least it's now a spare part for later. "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it" as it were.

Also I do intend to replace the parts one at a time and attempt starting between each experiment so I know exactly what caused it, this is normal troubleshooting for electrical (I'm just not as familiar with the electrical system of a motorcycle as I am with office buildings, lighting controls, PLC's, etc, hence the question about other possible places water might cause a two-cylinder short).

EDIT: Almost forgot, I did also try disconnecting the electrical connection to the right-hand controls and plugging in my spare right-hand control to confirm that the problem is not coming from the starter button or kill switch (this is why I love having spare parts lying around).

brianinpa":2o62217u said:

What is the condition of your sparkplug wires? The "boots" that keep both plug wires together at the head can contribute to hiding a lot of cracks and also keep in moisture.

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The wires I initially had on it were aftermarket and fairly new. I swapped them out for a used OEM set because it had that boot which I thought would reduce the chance of water pooling around the plugs (this was after I first noticed the problem and at the same time that I cleared out the #1 cylinder weep hole). I did check them thoroughly before installing them, though, and saw no problems. Just for the sake of prudence, though, when I go to swap in the igniters, module, and wiring harness I'll swap the other wires back in with a dry set of plugs before replacing the other parts just in case, I actually hadn't considered the possibility of those retaining moisture or slowing the dry-out.

weather cook wires are number 1 reason for raindead ..ithought in first post you said new wires ...id say this is probably it

[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=160208#p160208:1clh5qmu said:

joedrum » Yesterday, 8:35 pm[/url]":1clh5qmu]
weather cook wires are number 1 reason for raindead ..ithought in first post you said new wires ...id say this is probably it

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Not actually "new" just "new to me". They did look to me to be in very good condition, as did the aftermarket wires that were on it when I bought it. The rubber in the boots was pliable, nothing seemed cracked, brittle, or worn in either set. I mostly left the replacement OEM cables on it because of the rubber boot that's supposed to plug the spark plug well. I suppose it is possible that both sets of wires had a similar problem. I'll try the dry set after the hurricane passes (no workies on bike this weekend...) before swapping out the wiring harness, igniters, etc.

On a more positive note, I recieved a reply from an email to the makers of the C5 kit regarding how much of the ignition system would be supplanted by the upgrade. According to Paul Crowe the C5 kit uses no stock ignition parts whatsoever. That would only leave two possible culprits: the stator which I believe to be fine (and now that I've googled a bit about stator failure symptoms and become aware of the Poorboy conversion I'm almost looking forward to the stator failing) and the aforementioned spark plug well. And a thorough inspection of the spark plug well this afternoon showed no water there at all.

I am still wondering about the possibility of the starter solenoid going bad somehow interfering with ignition but not lights/etc. I know the positive main from the battery goes straight to the solenoid and feeds the main fuse. There are four wires leaving from the solenoid. One of them is the 12v+ coming from the starter button, but I'm not sure about the other three other than the fact that in a previous instance of two-cylinder operation unplugging the red wire with the white stripe (done by accident, it's loose in the connector plug, another reason to replace the wiring harness) caused the two functioning cylinders to improve slightly. The starter relay wiring diagram on Goldwingdocs doesn't seem to show a red/white wire coming off the solenoid so I'm not sure what it actually is. If you look at the solenoid from the top with the battery positive top left and the starter motor lead to right then this red/white wire would be the bottom right prong, close to the main fuse on the same side as the starter motor lead. The other three wires are shown in the diagram (green/red, red, and yellow/red) but seemingly not this one.
Of course if the present failure of all four spark plugs is due to the solenoid (it DID happen at the same time the solenoid quit functioning) then that would mean it's a separate problem from the aforementioned rain-induced cylinder failure.

your not alonne here i have been going trough the samr thing on my bike multiple wiring issues everywhere....personally im doing to rewire my entire bike my way ...ive the c5 ..solenoid has been changed....mew 30 amp fuse abd older put in....different reg and rectifier put in ....wiring harness wires are simply shot .....sheesh hang in there

One of the biggest problems with these old bikes, is that as a "new" owner you are left with what ever the previous owners did... good or bad. I don't recall a red/white wire at the solenoid, but to be honest I never really paid too close attention as I haven't had to work in that area much yet. If you find that the bike runs better when wires are disconnected, that would be the first thing I would begin to look at.

I think I understand you to state that Starter Sol. won't engage (you can jump it) and you're not getting fire on any cylinder for it to run.

In looking at the start circuit
https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=1162&image_id=11743
and the Ignition circuit
https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=1160&image_id=11722
the one thing that I notice is that the Ignition switch is in both circuits, could it be that the switch is the culprit? Just an idea k:

Installed replacement Starter Solenoid
Removed all four spark plugs and laid them across heads to check for spark.
Coil A (cylinders 1 and 2) did not spark, Coil B (Cylinders 3 and 4) had what appeared (to me) to be weak spark
Switched hot wires (blue and yellow) feeding Coil A and B: No effect, Coil B continues to spark, Coil A does not
Switched spark plug wires from Coil A and Coil B: No effect, Coil B continues to spark, Coil A does not
Switched Igniters feeding Coil A and Coil B: No effect, Coil B continues to spark, Coil A does not
Temporarily swapped in different Ignition Module: No effect, Coil B continues to spark, Coil A does not
Swapped position of coils: NO EFFECT, Coil A (now in B position) sparks, Coil B (now in A position) does not
Replace plugs and wires with brand new parts, but by this time the battery is pretty dead.
(I started wondering if maybe the spare plugs I'd gotten from the previous owner were resistor type since the wires were after-market, which would mean I had double resistors since I'd switched to OEM wires with the built in resistors, so I grabbed both from an auto parts store [spark plugs I got from previous owner were NGK DPR8EA 9, spark plugs I got from AutoQuest are Champion 810 RA8HC), new plug/wire sparks when connected to Coil B (or rather Coil A in the B position)
Plug in charger on 12A setting while I screw sparkplugs into the cylinders to see if it will fire
Switch to 75A Jump Start mode,
1st attempt, motor just spins
2nd attempt slight sputter
****THE PLOT THICKENS****
3rd attempt slight sputter but headlight doesn't come back on when I let go of the button. Oil light and Neutral Indicator Light stay on as normal, but headlight, tail light, and horn do not work. Speedometer and Tach lights only light up while holding start button. The entire fuse block has 12v (13 with the charger back in 2A mode) to the battery negative terminal. The negative screw next to the fuse block *also* has 13v to the negative battery terminal when the switch is on, but does read continuity (something like 4 ohms) to the negative terminal when the key switch is off.
At this point I think the bike is haunted and/or just hates me.

hmmmm yep this is something .....im trying to take all this in ...will post again