Intermitently losing 1 and 2

[petejw1966]

if uve got a compressor
look up soda blaster,
works wonders in cleaning up fouled plugs
and will save a small fortune in buying new plugs.

[BrettS]

Hey Jonesy, thanks kindly for excepting my offer of you helping me out  Ha ha. My fine tuning skills have never been great.
I should put 4 new plugs in ride over and then inspect them 
I am thinking I would like to wait until I get the new clutch in. I was hoping it would be here very soon but it seems to be going through several depots in America still 

[Jonesy]

Hey Brett
one observation from your spark plug photo.... 1 & 4 look a bit sootier than 2 & 3, this is also common to which plugs each coil supplies,
do do do do do do do do enter mystery music.......
Mate, if you want to cruise down we can have a go at nutting it out

Just another thought
Coils, small red grey and orange wires that go into them........
swap em over to the opposite coils and then swap the plug leads over too
so you've got the coil that powers 1 & 4 now powering up cylinders 2 & 3
and the 2 & 3 coil now powering up cylinders 1 & 4 you cant just swap the plug leads over you have to do the small orange and grey wires tooThis will be safe to do for the bike sake, basically all you are doing is swapping the coils around without physically swapping them around....if the problem moves to the other plugs you got a crook coil.
also did you check the wires are ok down at the pick ups down next to the vac advance these'll give intermittent probs until they completely break

EDIT
hmm this wont work if the plug leads are too short to reach will it damn I thought I was onto something there.

[BrettS]

Thanks Jeff I got that, Checked all the ones listed in the manual, although that is not all of the wires?

It is good to know that the TCI unit is working 

[excess.11]

Set/switch the scale to 20 in the DCV range on your meter........ as shown in your pic .
Plug your black lead to the "com"..and the red lead to the "V OHM mA"  of the bottom 2 connections on your meter........test between frame/ batt neg- "Black lead"............to whatever connector you wish to see what voltage is there-" Red lead".

[BrettS]

Hi Jeff, I have got the manual and I remember you telling me a proceedure to test the TCI unit when I was trying to get it going. I have looked at the manual and sorry to be such a dumb ass but I just can't make heads or tail out of what they say. For the coil it states to remove the coil and then connect the meter to the coil with the battery 
The TCI details first states to set at 20v dc. I have no idea how I do that and I am way over my head as far as electrics go. When working on cars we always had enough cheap parts that I just kept swapping parts over until it worked again LOL.
I think i need to have a hands on lesson one day to get my head around checking electrics.
Thanks though 

[BrettS]

Well blow me down with a big fat feather,
I put the plugs back and purposely put number 1 plug in number 2 and guess what now number 2 is not working.
Went down and got a new plug and dusty is purring away as good as it ever has.
Bloody plug looked fine and I thought they where all fairly new from the previous owner. Might replace the rest as well just to be sure.

Thanks kindly for your help Pete, I can't answer any of those questions at the moment. I might just wind in the mixture screws a little for now, maybe ride out to Jonesy's and he could help me do it by ear.

As I said before the needle and seat do seem to stick occasionally but it only seems to be when i forget to turn the fuel on and the carbies dry out. Not so sure this problem I have noted on losing number 1 and 2 cylinder is solved but for the moment it is running fine again. Think I will move the coils up to the top of the shopping list. Also want to start work on the "other" set of carbies that will run with pods. I will hopefully get my head around all the jet sizes float heights and other adjustments. I plan on talking to a guy near bathurst to help me put a engine package together and don't want to start buying stuff until I talk to him but he is bloody hard to contact.
I wonder if there is a better or newer option for the tci unit as well?

Well mini emergency over for now back to stopping that leak 

[excess.11]

Brett , intermittent firing can be caused by a number of things.............the plug caps are a favourite for breaking down spark........replace them if they look old......check them at night /in a dark place...crank the bike while looking for the spark jumping to the motor.

[excess.11]

Brett ,
Start by testing the output from the TCI unit ......where the coils are connected into........look for readings as per manual.
Brett...if you have nt got a hard copy manual.....or access to an online /downloadable manual.....it s probably time to get one.
Jeff

[petejw1966]

yep, there all way to rich,
im not upto date with what uve done
so we might as well start from the begining,
what size main jets are u running?
size of the pilot jets?
float heights?
are the needle and seats closing off on all carbs?

i cant even remember what model u have?
are the slide springs adjustable?

the ohms meter isnt to hard to use
have u got a workshop manual?  theatl explain how to use and what to check
for resistence of the coils/leads and caps.

[BrettS]

And this is my cheap digital meter, 

[BrettS]

Thanks Pete, I was afraid I would be asked to use the ohms meter. I bought one but have not figured how to use it yet 
I will have another go but here are the plugs for now.
Starting from left 1234, 1 looks wet so as the exhaust is now slightly warm I guess the spark is very weak. 2 and 3 look to be firing the best although they all look very rich to me, what do you think??

[petejw1966]

jat,
sounds like your plugs could be fouled
how do they look like?

also check ur coil/leads and caps with an ohms meter.

[BrettS]

I posted yesterday that I thought the carbies where fouled up again but now I am not so sure. I have had this problem, usually when I forget to turn the fuel on  After I turn the fuel back on I am down number 1 and 2.
The first time it happened I started pulling the number one lead of and as I would start to place it back on it would start to fire and eventually it would return to normal. So at first I thought it was an ignition issue.
Then I found that when I forgot to turn the fuel on (yes I have done it quite a few times) at first I would lose 1 and 2 then the carbies would flood and all would return to normal. So I thought that the carbies where not 100% and if they dried out (from me not turning the fuel on) then the needle and seat was getting stuck. Maybe taking the number 1 lead of allowed the fuel to lubricate the carby again ?? Some times I felt tapping the carbies worked as well.

The other day this started without the fuel taps being off. (I was getting more confident that the carbies would not flood and just left them on always) It was a VERY hot day and I just put it down to the old carbies not liking the heat but I would say that was way off.

At the moment I "was" down 1 and 2. After I mucked around with the leads pulling them off and back on as it was running number 3 came back. Number 1 only fires when I put the lead back on only half, this is what would normally happen before it would come back online. As in I rest the top of the plug just inside the lead cap. But this time it is not coming back.
Weird, I am starting to think that maybe the coil is faulty or some other part of the ignition system??

I was planning on upgrading the coils to those green ones and also starting work on upgrading the carbies. Either the set that Bryan gave me or maybe a set of 1200's as he has done but that was not for a while so I would like to figure what is going on here?