Coils (Dare I Say It?): A Resolution

[bajajoaquin]

So I'm one of the many people who have been suffering from poor running lately. It started one day: idles, but won't pull through the bottom end, stuttering through the midrange. I was taking the bike apart for some other work, so I consulted the Haynes manual. It said it could be spark.

I tested everything with an Ohmmeter. Everything checks out fine except for the crank pickup. A little more investigation finds that the wire is broken. Aha! I fix the wire by pulling apart the connector. It's a temporary "fix," but it should isolate that part. It doesn't fix the problem.

Finally, I go to the dealer. They charge be a bunch of dough for basically a tune-up and tell me that it was just running rich, and it now just "has a little stumble" off idle. I get it back, and it still runs like crap. After some more discussion, they suggest that the coils may be weak, and the real, underlying problem. They also suggest gapping the plugs down to .020" to make it easier for the spark to jump the gap.

So I do this, and the bike runs much better, for a few days, but starts to deteriorate quickly.

During this time, I've also been here, reading posts about coils. Someone on the TBird forum points me to Nology coils. About this time, KitNYC's bike takes a big dumper, and he offers me his used coils.

I agonize about buying used electrical parts. And agonize.

And then I buy them.

He shipped them when he said he would, and they arrived when he said they'd arrive. They arrived wrapped in several layers of foam, but in a Priority Mail pouch. Finally, I get them installed, and the plugs gapped back out to .030.

It runs fantastic! It's like having my old bike back!

Summary:

1.if you're having rough running problems, try gapping your plugs to .020". If that helps, it may indicate your coils are going.

2. Don't be afraid to buy from KitNYC. Although I'd have preferred a box, they were still very carefully wrapped, and didn't suffer from shipment. He's got a second set of Nology coils that he bought when he thought that was the issue.

3. What are you waiting for?

[KitNYC]

Woohoo! Glad the coils worked for you!

Cheers,
-Kit

[bajajoaquin]

Kit, thanks again. My bike works great, and doing business with you was a pleasure. Sorry your bike had to take a dumper, but at least you got a new Sprint!

[trypcil]

Did you by any chance, perhaps clean the spade end connectors(- the LT side of the oem coils), buff'd them to a fine bronze then made sure of a good firm fit helped with dielectrical grease and clean'd your battery terminals? "cos if you didn't those coils may have had another 30K of life left - it's almost as if these bike leak their electricity from these connection - hence the oxidation! My starter button does the same and I've grown to often wiggle connector about the bike. It's a maybe, of course and I would be interested to see if any owners of the nology coil have had any intermitant issues with the 'Super coil'. I do think that the nology coil is a great option but have all those tachometer issues been resolved yet - I seem to remember a capacitor or somesuch electronic mechanism being involved in the solution - or perhaps I'm just nuts!

[KitNYC]

Tryp, the *only* differences between the recent Nology coils & the Triumph coils are $55 each & a Nology sticker. They're PVL part number 1290007 whoever you get 'em from.

The tacho issues were with early Nology coils that had terminals for Nology plug wires. As long as you stick with the Triumph-specific coils they sell for the stock wires your tach should be fine, & I would imagine they've probably fixed the problem with the others by now as well. I've called Nology a couple of times & spoken to the owner every time. He really seems to know what he's talking about.

(And yes, the Nologies will be subject to exactly the same oxidation at the terminals & potential leaks around the epoxy at the bottom.)

Cheers,
-Kit

[bajajoaquin]

My tach works just fine. Now about the low-fuel light....