My 1999 ST1100 has 119,000KMs on the clock and has only had the odd minor hic-up since purchasing 3 years ago @ 104,000KMs. Anything I've needed to know I've found the solution for or have been guided by the experts from this site. Having said that, the bike has been pretty much issue free for me.
Returning home from work on Monday last week I stopped in to a store. They have a rough driveway/parking lot and when I hit a minor bump the engine immediately started running rough, and actually stalled out just as I came to a stop.
Hoping this was simply a temporary issue and would go away upon start up....well...not quite! The engine was running quite roughly...I thought I was only running on 3 cylinders. Got home just 3KM away driving very slowly.
Couldn't work on the bike until today. Stripped off the tupperware, I started up the engine (still running rough) and felt all four exhaust pipes heating up. Hot enough that you couldn't touch any of them. Then I remembered I had received a portable laser temperature reader last Christmas...got it out and took a reading on each exhaust pipe. Interesting...on the left side the two pipe temperatures were in the 260- 275 Celsius range. On the right side both were at approx 75 Celsius. Humm? Took off the air cleaner, started the bike (still rough running) and placed my hand over the two stacks providing air to the left cylinders and the bike stalled out. Restarted the bike (still running rough) and covered the stacks for the right cylinders showed no difference the bike was still running roughly. Pulled the plug wires/caps on the right cylinders and again, no difference - the engine was still running roughly. Pulling the left cylinder plug wires/caps resulted in the engine stopping.
Since I can smell unburned fuel, I'll assume the right cylinder carbs are working fine, but just there's no spark. Seems to me like this is a coil related issue affecting the right cylinder bank.
So, what procedure is recommended next? BTW, I'm not even certain how to get my hands on those coils...they appear tucked away in a difficult to reach place. Any assistance or information on just how to get to those coils or any other tests I can conduct on the coil itself would be helpful...and/or other suggestions are certainly welcomed.
Returning home from work on Monday last week I stopped in to a store. They have a rough driveway/parking lot and when I hit a minor bump the engine immediately started running rough, and actually stalled out just as I came to a stop.
Hoping this was simply a temporary issue and would go away upon start up....well...not quite! The engine was running quite roughly...I thought I was only running on 3 cylinders. Got home just 3KM away driving very slowly.
Couldn't work on the bike until today. Stripped off the tupperware, I started up the engine (still running rough) and felt all four exhaust pipes heating up. Hot enough that you couldn't touch any of them. Then I remembered I had received a portable laser temperature reader last Christmas...got it out and took a reading on each exhaust pipe. Interesting...on the left side the two pipe temperatures were in the 260- 275 Celsius range. On the right side both were at approx 75 Celsius. Humm? Took off the air cleaner, started the bike (still rough running) and placed my hand over the two stacks providing air to the left cylinders and the bike stalled out. Restarted the bike (still running rough) and covered the stacks for the right cylinders showed no difference the bike was still running roughly. Pulled the plug wires/caps on the right cylinders and again, no difference - the engine was still running roughly. Pulling the left cylinder plug wires/caps resulted in the engine stopping.
Since I can smell unburned fuel, I'll assume the right cylinder carbs are working fine, but just there's no spark. Seems to me like this is a coil related issue affecting the right cylinder bank.
So, what procedure is recommended next? BTW, I'm not even certain how to get my hands on those coils...they appear tucked away in a difficult to reach place. Any assistance or information on just how to get to those coils or any other tests I can conduct on the coil itself would be helpful...and/or other suggestions are certainly welcomed.