Triumphrat

Hi all, just bought a 00 Thunderbird at the Marin County Triumph dealer in San Rafael CA. Sadly, the bike is seriously messed up - which naturally, did not surface on the test ride.

When the bike heats up, the engine starts cutting out. Meaning, when I go from a stop to 20 MPH - if I am ANY less then 3000 RPM on the engine, and unless I let the clutch out very slowly - the engine starts sputtering and stalling. (absolutely forget about climbing any hills) If the engine is really hot, just turning the throttle will cause the engine to sputter a bit until it gets turning past 2000 RPM. (idles about 1500 RPM - seems to idle fine)

The net is that when it's cold, it starts fine - even at low RPM's it pulls the bike strongly from a stop with no problem. (ie. it drives normally) On the freeway it performs admirably - but when I get into San Francisco the bike is damn near impossible to drive from stop light to stop light without revving the thing past 5000 RPM and riding the clutch.

I have had it to the dealer two times, each time some idiot spends time adjusting the carb - the problem just gets worse.

Have any of you had a similar problem, what turned out to be the resolution?

Slinky

Two things spring to mind- either you have a bad coil or a carb problem.

If the bike has been standing for a long time the pilot airways can become blocked with crud from evaporated fuel. THis would lead to a rich mixture at low throttle, not a problem on a cold engine but getting progressively worse as the engine warms up.

When the bike is hot, try (briefly) touching the header pipes in turn. If one is considerably cooler than the others it will indicate the problem cylinder.

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Fozzy

I've just been through the same problem - managed to find which pot was misfiring and changed the ignition coil. This fixed the problem - for a while. She soon started missing again when pulling off with hot engine. To cut a long story short I ended up changing all 3 coils and so far so good.
There do seem to have been a lot of coil problems on these bikes - my bad coils were stamped 28/00 (week/year).

Three coils later my legend is now running smooth again. I was having the same problems with no regard to engine temperature. I would suggest the coils, all who have tried fuel fixing have come back and changed coils.

Jcatbert

Coils, coils, coils. Those are the exact symptoms I had on my 2K T-Bird. Mine were stamped 07/00 (July 2000). I don't quite understand the date stamp on yours. Do a search keyword coils and you will find a ton of info that we needn't repeat, unless you can't find anything.

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Fozzy

I'd guessed the first number on the date stamp was the week number eg 01/00 first week in jan 2000 and 52/00 being last week in december 2000.

dhall10

Yep I just did a coil as well. Give the guys @ Manyunk Triumph a yell, not sure what they'll charge to ship, but I got a garunteed used coil for half the price of a non-garunteed new one.

The link to them is in the web links, also see my comment the dealers/shop forum.

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mecscc

Just an observation on all of this, particularly regarding mechanics that always jump to the assumption that "it must be the carbs." Truth is, it usually is NOT the carbs, and, assuming the bike was running well before it starts abruptly running poorly, or runs well under some conditions but not others it is almost NEVER the carbs and is almost ALWAYS electrical. Still, so many shops assume it is the carbs; then they tinker with them and you can only pray that they don't screw them up. If your mechanic does not check out (and thus rule out) the electrics FIRST then I think it is problematic just how good a mechanic he is.

Take care,

Monte

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Monte

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sco

Had the same problem on mine 2000 T-Bird
turned out to be number 2 H-T lead arcing inside the rubber boot that goes onto the sparkplug.After stripping the carbs,changing coils etc.
Sco

Slinky

I only mentioned a carb problem as a possibility, right after I mentioned the coils.

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"You can't fly with the eagles if you keep scratching with the turkeys."