Its broken: 03 GSA on the sick

[Repoman]

My 03 GSA currently wont pull the skin off a rice pudding. Feels really flat all the way through the rev range but particularly strangled above 4-5000 rpm. At the moment I doubt that the bike would top 100mph.

Its def not the unseated throttle cable problem and it was serviced about 2,000 kms ago. Talking to Steve the mechanic at Joe Duffy's in Dublin he suggests that one of the coils may have gone...or that I had a bad tank of fuel. mmm. would have to have been diesel to be this bad...

I am going to book it in to be sorted, but fwiw, any ideas?

 

[pikeydave]

Had a similar scenario. Search for 'Double ignition probs' in the technical section for something similar to your problem.

 

[Repoman]

Thanks Dave - thats it I reckon.

I'm also getting a lot more back firing than usual so it certainly seems like an unburnt fuel / spark problem...

 

[Fanum]

What Dave said....

My coils (the ones in the ends of the leads in the cyl heads) broke down after sitting in water for ages...can't think why ....but it caused similar problems...no power, hesitations that felt likt fuel blockages etc....

A pair of coils looted from that very nice Mr Tippytoes' breaking adv sorted it immediately though....

They are expensive if it is that but it's a piss easy thing to rule out......lots of twin spark 1150's flying around you could temporarily swap with.

(watch the little catches as you disconnect them though...that's where they're prone to break)

HTH
Bill

 

[Repoman]

Thanks Bill

Will be getting Joe Duffy Motorrrad to insert my coil...

 

[Firegus]

this may seem daft, but

have you checked the connections to the coils. I had the same problem and after removing and refitting the exhaust & y piece as suggested it was still backfiring and running lumpy.
I removed the plug covers and found one of the connections undone, pushed it in and voila! sorted

 

[DavidHale]

I had a similar problem on my 1150 GSA. Bike was running fine, then after sitting out in some heavy rain for a hour it started to play up just as your describing. Took it to Cannons who, after some head scratching and about 2 hours said it was the coils. Changed them and all was back to normal. Bill at Cannons said it was the first one he had seen do that, so he ran it through as a warranty claim (even though it was out of warranty).

Been fine ever since. I guess the water must have got where it shouldn't...

 

[Lou Can]

Ah progress.

IIRC the twin lead coils on airheads GS and ST models suffered similarly and caused the same problems (and cost £90 a pop to fix) .

Good to see B*W have maintained a firm problems link with the past throughout product development over the last 20 years and have not restricted themselves to inventing new problems solely associated with emergent technologies.

Its a coil. How hard can it be to make it reliable (especially on an 'advenure' bike)? Jeez

LC