Ooops, I did it again...

Just bought a 1982 Kawi 440 LTD after promising myself I wouldn't buy another older bike since I don't know how to fix them and the shops won't touch them. But this one looked so gooood...

I rode it the 150kms home, parked it and tried to take it out the following day. Sporadic firing on the number one cylinder. Have not yet done the carb cleaning, etc. Any recommendations on where to start? I'm seriously considering bringing this bike inside my house and taking it apart completely there, but my biggest problem is I don't know how to test components as I go along to be sure they are decent...

 

Start by getting a manual.
It will give a place to start and when you run into issues you can always ask here.

 

Remember the basics: Fuel, air, spark (at the correct time.)

 

Fit a new set of plugs & keep on riding.

 

+1 Wiz. Most likely thing to fail as described.

 

Did the following last night, starting with the plugs:

Checked plugs, gas on #1 plug.
Swapped plugs, still gas on #1 plug.
Pipes off #1 are barely warm.
Swapped leads, still #1 issue
Went back to coil & igniter, checked and wipe-cleaned all connections.
Still #1 issue, but briefly better.
Pulled #2 lead off, #1 would go by itself, pipe would get hot
Dropped #2 lead back on, pipe cooled, and back to where we started.
Any further ideas?
I would have thought it was fuel, except for the gas on the spark, so maybe it's mix?

 

Congrats on the new bike. That's one of my favorites from the 80s. At work there is a guy who has one and I still love the look today.

 

Pull number one plug, ground its threads against the head and turn it over. Do you have spark?

 

Yes, tried on both sides, nice spark.

 

If this thing has sat, you could have crud under a float needle and one carb is overfilling the float bowl/trying to flood.

If the bike WAS running fine and this suddenly happened, unless elves came along and fiddled with the carbs overnight I would suspect crud in a float (or passage.) On some bikes (not 550 Secas however) you can drop the float bowls with the carbs still on the bike, and see if they're full of crud. Take them off carefully so you can see what's in there prior to dumping out.

My Norton suddenly started running for crap one afternoon, so I dropped the float bowls and found one full of... main jet. (it had come unscrewed.)

It's certainly worth a look if you can accomplish it.

Also, and old bike is an old bike; install an inline fuel filter asap.

 

I have some advice telling me to swap out the coil, but I think I'll clean the carbs (again) first. This will all have to wait until this weekend. apparently the bike is not supposed to be able to run with only one lead on, but it does, so it points to a coil issue...

 

Not running with only one lead means it's not supposed to be able to run on one cylinder; I can't see how this points to a coil problem if you have spark on both sides. The fact that it ran and then didn't makes me think a piece of whatever got dislodged on your ride home and is now re-lodged where it ought not be.

It wouldn't hurt to examine your coils and their electrical connections; look for cracks, etc.

 

Yup did that yesterday too, checking all the points and everything seemed to clear the problem up for a minute, but it came back again (making me think of a short, hm.) I'll be taking it all apart and putting it back together again on the weekend, carbs included, weather permitted. It's been dry stored for years and now it's just in a carport, making me think moisture/condensation too. Now that would suck since it would be almost impossible to cure.

 

Did you park it on the sidestand or centrestand? If it's the sidestand, is the fouling problem on the sidestand side cylinder? Could be fuel running across from the other carb and flooding the mix (my ZX9 does this if I leave it on the sidestand for too long).

Also check your charging - could be that it's not getting enough power to fire both sparks at the same time (it's just the one coil, yes?)

 

Or maybe jsut too much gas is being allowed into the cylinder when you're starting it. Lower float level on 1. Or try the Mixture screws. Might wanna check to see if the main jet is the correct size too. Sound to me that its just pushing too much gas into your cylinder and drowning the plug before it can fire