strima

This is what I love about OSS, no shiny bling shit bolted on, just proper bikes being made to look, run and ride very well!!!

Good news mate, always annoying tracking down and electrical fault to find it's a fuelling issue.Rectifiers easy enough to sort out at least!!!

The wire may buzz out well when dead but might start breaking down under load, always worth a punt.

Have you tried running a temp wire from the coil to the igniter?

That is gorgeous.

Check the coil mountings are clean and free of paint/corrosion etc. The HT side should have a good earth path from the coil to the engine, even if you run a temp in to see if that helps.

With your loom it's best to have as few joints/connectors as possible, less to fail.

I've fond the Suzi v-twin lumps need a good run out to get them running properly. Left my SV for nearly a year and was a bitch to start and ran like a pig until I gave it a good blast out, then ran sweet as a nut afterwards.

One of these, the second one normally works best:

That's a good repair there.

Got any pictures???

Happy days, if only most things in life were that simple...

Go for the GS one, it's cheaper!!! Also easier to wire up.

I've had an Electrex reg/rec on my GS for the last ten years with no problems, got it from Wemoto and they're still doing them for £66.

I would think the reg/rec is more than likely the culprit, the gennys are pretty solid on the GS. Have you checked the genny output and voltage across the battery when running at high idle?

My 850 does it occasionally, I just live with it. Took me the best part of two hours to get it adjusted to where it selects neutral most of the time. I have the same set-up with EBC plates and HD springs, at least I don't get any clutch slip...

Could explain the smoke when running, if the engine has been stood the seals may have dried out and welded themselves to the valves.

Winner!!! Glad you got it sorted.

Electrics look confusing but if you draw the circuit out on a piece of paper using different coloured pens it can help a lot, just simplifies the process. Wiring diagrams are great but can confuse the fault finding process especially when following a Haynes black and white as it's easy to get the circuits mixed up.

Could be the pickup for 1/4 starting to fail or the cabling to it.

Most car manufacturers can't even get a CANBUS to work properly, I have no chance!!! Although it would be handy to have Bluetooth connectivity to the audio system for music streaming and phone calls...

Resistance is very bad. I'm not that familiar with EFE wiring but at a guess the coils are permanently charged and the rotor triggers when to discharge. So there must be a permanent supply from the ignition circuit split between both coils, as 2&3 are working well I would suspect that the problem lies between the coil and the CDI/rotor. Check the resistance between the coil negative and the connection point nearest the CDI. I would start by cleaning all the connector blocks, a good squirt with electrical contact cleaner normally works. Also check for signs of the copper oxidising on any connectors, this will be a lovely green colour, if it's green then the cable will need chopping back to good copper. TBH I would never trust an old loom, I tend to make my own as it keeps things tidy and it's easier to fault find as I know what cable does what, but I like to do them all in black to make it more of a challenge...

Is the loom original or purpose made? The kill switch should kill both coils so the gremlins are in the wiring somewhere. Time to get the multimeter out and check the whole ignition circuit from source, don't just check for continuity, also check for very low resistance on the ohms setting, you should see nothing higher than roughly 0.25 ohms, anything higher means a dodgy connection or wire that will effect the system.

A quick check would be to run a length of cable from the coil mounting point to the cylinder head to act as an earth. If this works then you know where the problem lies. If there is paint in the threaded mounting holes just cut a slot along and old bolt and this should take most if not all of the paint out, unless you have the correct size tap.

Remove the coil, clean all the fixings and securely fit it back into place. This could well be your problem as the coil needs a return path for the magic blue smoke once it has jumped the gap on the plug. Your LT leads could well be fine but the HT also needs a complete circuit for it to work correctly, a weak spark would be caused by this. It's all about primary and secondary winding within the coil.