South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

okay. so i have a gsf 600 bandit, and whenever the bike got wet, it would run on three. one day noticed that cylinder 4 ht lead was arcing out also started doing it in the dry. (needed new coils anyway so purhcased some new ones) been fine then, few months later i painted the engine black (used proper heat resistant cylinder black paint) and again, was fine for a while but now whenever the bike gets wet/damp (sometimes in the current mist we are having) the bike tends to run on 3 cylinders. more so if i open the throttle quickly as apposed to slowly. any help would be much appreciated as i cant carry on like this through the winter! thanks guys.

did you replace the HT leads as well? try spraying wd40 or the like over it when it starts doing that see if that cures it,or put a longer ht lead on and reroute the lead away from the engine
Merv

yes bought coils leads and plug caps all at once. yes some one else has recomended wd40. will try when i get a chance. as with re routing theres not much else i can do, ill try and keep them all a bit further away from the engine!
thankyou!

also take the wire connectors off the coils, give them a good spray with contact cleaner, push firmly back together then smear some vasaline over the connectors. You may have some moisture in there? Otherwise were the coils new or second hand? I had the same problem on mt bandit400, then i changed the coils for B12 ones and never had the problem again. Make sure the plugs are clean too and your ht leads are properly pushed onto the coil connectors, if neccessary use some black silicon sealant and smear around where the ht leads enter the coil. Try to find out which coil is missing first though, when it starts missing stop the bike and check which exhaust down pipe is cooler than the other, CAREFULLY ;) , keep your bike gloves onuntil you can find the culprit, then at least you can isolate which plug is mis-firing and start from there.

Still don't understand the WD40 advice, why use a water based product to try and protect something from water

I thought WD40 was oil based Deej?
in which case buy DW40 from ebay it is De watering formula , £15 a gallon posted
merv

The main component in wd40 is fish oil.

WD stands for water displacement.


There endith the lesson for today.

Mervin wrote:I thought WD40 was oil based Deej?
in which case buy DW40 from ebay it is De watering formula , £15 a gallon posted
merv

nope, wurths research showed it to be water based mate

WD40 has always worked as a water dispersant for me

Are there drain holes from the plug cap wells on a bandit? if so are they clear?

Deffo water based & WD stands for War Dept... If you havent changed them recently, its likely to be your plugs btw.

Isn't it WD for Water Displacement, 40 being the 40th attempt in getting the formula right?


Back to the OP original question, may be worth stripping coils & leads from bike & spraying whole lot with Damp Start - this will leave a flexible coating on everything.

Wikipedia entry, water displacer 40th attempt is correct according to this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40

I used to get a few random problems with sparks etc, but now I just wire mine up to run on stick coils from the sports bikes, huge sparks, engines deffo run better, and never any problems anymore

my GTR1000 is running stick coils from a GSXR, get the ohmage right, ie 1.2-1.5 ohm each coil and wired in series as 2 pairs, dont even hear the starter motor turn on mine now, just instant engine life.

If it's number three it's because water rests on top of that plug cap from sitting on the side stand, my Bandit 12 does it and my GSXR 750K did it all the time, replaced the plug caps with NGK red rubber ones, problem solved