And I saw animals walking two by two...

A little history...

So I am riding home last saturday, coming down out of the mountains in northern Arkansas, when mother nature decides she needs to settle the dust with a little shower.

Did I say little shower? How about "THE PERFECT STORM!!!"

I was desperately looking for any kind of shelter, an underpass, a roadside peach stand, anything at all. To no avail.

As the bike (and myself) got progressively wetter, my beautiful 1985 Maxim X ran worse and worse. I coasted into my driveway just as the bike gave one last shuddering gasp and died.

Fast forward to today...

I've cleaned and dried everything I can find on the bike, drained the tank and the carb bowls, flushed them out with Sea Foam, and refilled with fresh gasoline. Even changed out the plugs AND the coils AND the TCI with known good and dry replacements. I removed the headlight and made sure all the connections inside were clean and dry. Checked all the fuses under the idiot lights. Checked all of the connections under the seat and under the side cover.

Guess what.

It still won't start and run.

It turns over great and I get the occasional backfire, but no joy.

What else should I check?

 

And yes I checked for spark and fuel. I also cleaned and re-oiled the K&N air filter and made sure the airbox was good to go.

 

Wild guess- maybe electrical and you're grounding out somewhere?

 

there is H2O in there somewhere, causing mahem, once that degree of damp gets into wiring it's a hell of a job to shift.

 

If we guess it's electrical, what is left: grounding wire/connection, battery? Does it crank easily, these bikes need a lot for the coils and starter? Have you tried jumping or charging the battery?

I'm sure there is other things but this is what I could think of.

 

Charged up the battery real good and tried again.
After numerous attempts and even more numerous backfires I finally got it started. It is running VERY roughly and won't idle at all. I made it onto the small lane in front of my house and sputtered along for about 2 miles, turned it around and came back home. Reached around and carefully touched the headers. numbering them 1 through 4 from left to right while sitting on the bike, 1 was scalding hot, 2 was barely warm, 3 was scalding hot, and 4 was barely warm. So I have 2 cylinders not firing. Rechecked the coils and plugs and plug wires and boots, all of them checked out good. Could it be my carbs? Could I have gotten enough water in them riding through that long drenching rain storm last Saturday to have plugged them up or something? I have drained the bowls several times and made sure to drain and refill the tank with premium (plus a dose of seafoam).

If it was your bike, what would you checkor do next? Anyone?

I've never torn the carbs down all the way before, but I am willing to try it if that's the problem.

 

Take a can of WD-40 and spray the ignition switch. If water gets down in there you'll have this type of problem. I would also remove each plug wire cap and blow it out with compressed air.

 

I'm at work so can't check the manual right now, BUT I seem to remember that cylinders 1 and 3 fire TOGETHER (only one is on compression) as do 2 and 4. There is only ONE trigger, but TWO coils (one for 1/3 and one for 2/4) I would suspect a connectivity or some sort of other issue with the coil that fires those two cylinders...

 

Finally!!! woot!

Did a complete clean and rebuild of the carbs (dang those boots are tough to get back on).

Went to fire it up and... same problem as before. Cylinders 2 and 4 were stone cold.

As a testament to how well these bikes are made, I was still able to do 75 mph on only 2 cylinders.

On the way home today I was pondering my problem and happened to be listening to an old car repair talk show on the radio ( I was in my truck since the bike was fubar'd) and they mentioned MIS-WIRING the plug wires.

No way thought I, I'm much too smart to do that.

I finally got home and raced to my workshop where the bike was sitting with the seat and tank removed. Looked down and almost fainted. Left coil was hooked to 1 and 2, right coil to 3 and 4.

Anyways, I switched them to the correct plugs, hit my head on the concrete block wall a few times as penance, and fired that bad girl up. She never sounded sweeter ! I rode about 25 miles and it's like I have a brand new bike!

Many thanks to Schmuckaholic for his excellent carb rebuild guide also, it went so much smoother having step by step instructions and pictures to reference.

 

Art one more thing if I may add it.
When the ol girl gets wet I take my 100+MPG leaf blower out and blow every drop of water out before the trouble starts.

Another note is that when I wash my bike that's how I dry it off too!