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Bike just stopped running 82 R100 RT

ocoinji

New member
Coming home from work today bike just quit like someone unplugged it. Turns over but no spark. Help please.

Jim O'Coin
 
No spark

Have not refreshed IM grease in 20k miles, bought bike with 35k, now has 55k miles. No recent significant service in 2k miles. Not the kill switch, it turns over.
 
Bean can

How would i check that? Does it come apart? Electrical check? I get no spark on either cylinder.
 
This could be a lot of things, especially on a 31 year old motorcycle. I've had similar issues. The first one that I had turned out to be the switchgear with the kill switch. But, the symptom there was no lights, no turnover, so yes, as if if kill switch was on.

The next one was actually within the wiring harness that was causing your exact same symptoms. This was a case where, you could move some wires around and get spark. Examine the wires and you see splices and bodges where previous owner or owners had attempted fixes. Replaced that whole harness, life was good.

The last one was a little trickier, although again, it involved the starter not engaging. This was a case where a wire got stretched up in the bars from the switchgear. I could short the relay, and the starter would kick, but the button wouldn't work.

One simple thing you can do is to pull the tank and examine your wires and connections. Make sure they're tight and clean and also make sure you don't have any old corroded or spliced wires.

Good Luck.
 
the magnets broke loose and tore up the advance mechanism,i had no spark but it cranked all day,i just pulled the front cover off (After removing the ground strap-never forget to do this step!!) marked and unbolted the can then just took it apart to inspect it.the hard magnets trashed the mechanical advance parts and the plastic magnet holders shattered into a thousand pieces.the shaft that the advance unit runs on was chewed up like a 64th of an inch,not repairable so I replaced it with a motorad electric bean can new and all is now back to normal as a airhead can be.
 
Kill Switch Test

You can eliminate a few components if the bike will pass this test: Pull a sparkplug and seat it firmly in its boot and then ground (firmly!) the body of the plug to the cylinder. With the plug firmly against the cylinder, switch on the ignition and flip the kill switch on and off. Each time the kill switch interrupts power to the ignition, the coil should fire the plug. If you get a nice spark, you know that the kill switch, ignition module, coil, plug wire and plug are OK - or at least they're not in total failure mode. If you don't get a spark, you've got some suspects to check out. If you do get a good spark, the Hall sensor in the bean can becomes a prime suspect.

Now that I think about it, I can't recall if this test really tells you much about the ingition module - but I think the IM has to pass current to the coil so you'd get at least a partial IM test out of this. Does anyone else remember?
 
My R100 GS did that one day out in the boonies. It was just one of the wires that plug onto the coil that had worked loose and become a bit crudded up. I pulled it off, cleaned it, tightened it a bit and put it back on. Bike fired right up and never gave me another problem. I would check the simple stuff first.
 
I have that happen to me but only one of the coil wires was loose so it was trying to run on one cylinder. This breakdown was nothing like that.
 
Diagnosed it. Kill switch and Ignition module seem ok. I will confirm the bean can is the culprit. Thanks for all of the great advise.

Jim
 
I just replaced the soup can electronic ignintion with a motorad unit,diod board,rotor,etc.. ,wow it runs better than ever.My mechanical advance unit wasn't working properly for some time.The magnets finally let loose but heck they lasted for more than 30 years and that's not bad in my book.went for a long ride today,sweet!!:dance
 
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