Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Another igniter story

About 4 or 5 times in the last couple weeks, I'd start my bike and let it run a few minutes and the left cylinder would quit firing for about 15 seconds then fire back up and run fine for a couple days then do it again. Sunday we had a group of guys meet at my house to ride to a deer farm to check out all the monster deer we can't shoot. Well I fire her up and she runs about a minute then quits firing on the left cylinder and stayed that way. I switched all the coil wires and spark plug wires, fired her up again and still no fire on the left side. Not a bad coil. That means it's the igniter, d*****m, third one now. I have a used spare so I put it on and she fires right up and off we go.
Here’s another part of the story. For most of the summer when I start my bike the tach doesn’t work, after 3 to 10 miles it starts to work fine. I figered it was a lose connection so I checked the wires and plug and I would tap on it and hit a bump to see if it would start working. No luck with that. Well when I put on the spare igniter and started the bike the tach worked. Today I put in the bad igniter and the tach didn’t work, put the spare back in and the tach works. There is some connection between the two but I don’t know what it is. The question is, can the tach cause the igniter to fail or does the igniter failing cause the tach to act up? Does this give us another angle that may help figer this failing igniter thing out?
What say Gurus?

Email Procom. info@procomengineering.com
Our best bet is an aftermarket ignitor. They've received a
bleep-load of emails from us already, one more can't hurt.

The tach gets its info from the ignitor so yes, a failed ignitor would cause the tach to act up (pin 15 I think is the take-off). If the tach were the failure point Triumph would have issued a service bulletin; their silence means they don't really know if it's heat, electrical surge, or just spotty manufacturing. That said, you can be darned certain they know the mounting point is problematic just from the fact that standards don't have this recurrent problem.

How about another angle to the problem to consider? Where have the failures taken place geographically. Hot humid area, temperate, frigid??? I wonder if more fail in the southern US or where our friends "down under" live or somewhere in the middle.


Has anyone made an EXTENSION HARNESS so we could relocate the CDI away from the engine? Where would one purchase the connections?

More weird science. I gave away my factory console mounted tach in favor of a handle bar mounted Drag Specialties tach. To the best of my understanding, I wired it just like the factory tach. When my igniter failed, the Drag Specialties tach still worked.

More weirdness, part II - When my igniter started to fail in Fall of '08, the right side went down, then during trouble shooting in Spring of '09, the right side came back up, and the left side went down. Very confusing to trouble shoot until I found a working igniter. (See also, a long list of "help me soon, or I'm clearing a path to the swamp that can accommodate a flaming motorcycle" posts)

Weirdness part III - My bike was built in 11/04, making it an '05. There was a TSB I believe that was first published in 06 or 07 ? recommending the flywheel sensors should be moved from .1 mm gap to .08 mm gap. (I may be off on the decimal - heavy cipherin' for me) I took the side cover off for the first time in '09. The sensors were already dead nuts at .08. The side case has NEVER been off prior to '09.

Who said Lucas is dead?

I'm sorry for only making it worse Terry, but thems the facts

I don't think this problem is only related to Americas & Speedies. I know of a couple "standard" Bonnie CDI failures. I have a very low mile 04 Thruxton thats had one go out, the CDIs on "standard" Bonnies are under the seat.

Moisture might have more to do with the problem. My Thruxton was running great till one day I got caught in the rain only about 5 blocks from home. Due to construction in the area the asphalt was muddy, so I rinsed the bike off with just the plain hose, no spray. Two days later the left cylinder is not firing, checked everything. Switched out a CDI out of our T-100 and varroom!

Gill makes these CDIs, BMW also uses them I think.

I too was wondering if the bikes with tachs have all or most of the igniter failures. Maybe get more input.
As far as geographical, I think we determined they happen all over the place. It never gets HOT around here.
I looked at the schematic and I think it is pin 15 that has a direct line to the tach but I get lost when I don’t know what happens between the two. When the other two igniters went I don’t know if the tach worked or not so this is a new observation that I thought should be brought to light. Maybe worth something maybe not.
I unplugged my tach for now.

Quote:

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When my igniter started to fail in Fall of '08, the right side went down, then during trouble shooting in Spring of '09, the right side came back up, and the left side went down. Very confusing to trouble shoot until I found a working igniter.

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That is weird! I think it was the left side with all my failures.
I'm gonna see if Triumph will replace this one.

The right then left failure had me wondering if I crossed up the coil wires, but I don't believe the bike would run at all like that. The spark would be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think.

I saved the old igniter in case anyone ever wants to saw it open for failure analysis.

I've seen first hand water caused failures too. Glazer at GA for one. You could see a crack in his igniter that let water in. Once it dried, it worked fine. I looked high and low on mine for cracks or breaches that would allow water in but couldn't find any, dried it out for a long while, and it still was dead. I'm told Mlessard had a similar adventure during a monsoon ride that involved a convenience store infra red food warmer / igniter repair device.