Xs 1100

[Shredder]

My buddy joe has an xs1100 he bought from my dad. Was having issues that it want running right. It will run good and the intermittently start runnind bad like it was dropping a cylinder or 2. He brought it over so we could check it out. Narrowed it down to one of the coils cutting out.

He threw a new set of plugs in it awhile back. Pulled the plugs and the coil that runs cylinders 1 and 4 dont look like its firing. Cylinders 2 and 3 look like they are.

Hes got an extra set of coils were gonna throw on and i think he will be good to go!

I know its not a vmax just thought id share my friday night project.

 

[Traumahawk]

Looks like good times.

 

[caseyjones955]

Cool bike, my first big bike was an XS1100 from 78 I believe. I hope the coils sort the issue, if not I can go ahead and come pick it up and get it out of your way. :biglaugh:

 

[Shredder]

Its a great running bike when it wants to run. I was showing him the cops that i have but havent installed yet. He was thinking it would be cool if he could runs something like that.

 

[Fire-medic]

The XS11 was for a short time, the 'fastest bike.' They have very stout bottom ends, and are good candidates for power-adders. A popular mod when they were new was turbocharging. The local Snap-On salesman in Ft. Lauderdale, Bob Lacoste, ran one for many years, he may still have it. I have some print pics of it somewhere.

 

[SpecOps13]

Had an XS11 in mint condition years ago. Went to an XJ1100, really the predecessor to the Vmax in an inline design. It was Super fast. Had a test ride on a Turbo 1100. The front wheel hit the ground finally at 110 MPH, Wow. All were Awesome bikes in their own right....


Thanks for sharing your story.....

Dave

 

[jfeagins]

Having had an XS1100, I highly suspect your coils are not the problem. I would look at getting a new pickup assembly. It resides under a cover on the left side of the bike and bolts to a plate positioned so that the turning crank comes around and trips a signal each revolution. That plate is spring loaded, and provides the centrifugal timing advance.over time, with the plate constantly rocking with the timing advance, the two itty bitty gauge wires going from the pickup (which flexes with the advance) over to a fixed position on the block, will wear out and fracture inside their colored coating. You'll play hell most times even identifying a break in one of those wires, but it will be frayed in two on the inside - causing intermittant dropping of two cylinders. One wire fires one coil, and the other will fire the other, if I remember correctly.

Back in 1979, my original dealer played hell out of figuring this problem out, and I spent hundreds od dollars in shop time and unneeded carb jobs, and still never figured it out. I eventually went to a second dealership to get it sorted. He, too, nearly gave up, but eventually got the symptom to replicate while it was on the center stand, and with the cover off. He bumped those two wires with his screwdriver and the bike died.
In those days, that sensor cost about $55 each, and I went through at least 4 of them over the years before selling it and moving up to a Venture. I think I averaged 15 k miles each sensor before it would happen again.

 

[Shredder]

Well we ended up swapping the coil that fires cylinder 1 and 4. Bike runs great now. Put close 100 miles on it today with no issues at all.

 

[blaxmax]

Its a great running bike when it wants to run. I was showing him the cops that i have but havent installed yet. He was thinking it would be cool if he could runs something like that.

Check the resistance and give me an ohm reading on the coils.

 

[Shredder]

I did ohm out the suspected bad coil. From what i read online it was supossed to be between 3 and 5 ohms on the primary side of the coil. When i tested it it was just over 1 ohm. The one we replaced it with was just over 3 ohms.

 

[jfeagins]

I got money that says your intermittant problem will be back........just sayin'.....but good luck, and I hope the coil swap works for you.
I had 2 friends with XS1100s, (one was a special, the other a 1978), and they both ended up having the same pick up problems as I had. Mine first started doing it when i'd hose it off at the car wash. I suspect, in my cases, it had something to do with the temp change on that little wire, causing the broken section to contract a bit and break connection. We thought I was getting water in a plug cap, or something, but as time went on, it would get worse until it would be missing on two cylinders more than it was running on four.

 

[blaxmax]

PM sent.

 

[The Beekeeper]

Thanks for the info Jim, he puts a lot of miles on that old Yammi and it sounds like a common problem he will eventually experience.............................Tom.

 

[jfeagins]

Never understood how any real engineer at Yamaha could have thought that hanging a pickup on a part that had to constantly rock back and forth like those centrifugal advances did, and depend upon so tiny of wires (prolly not even 30ga) to hold up. I think I was lucky to get 15K out of each one.

2H7-81676-10-00 Pulser coil assy, on the fiche. I see they aren't available any longer. There must be an industry replacement - prolly solid state, that replaces that mess, because there's still too many XS1100's running around.

Yikes! The last known price for replacements were over $150.00, but I see on an XS1100 forum where guys were repairing the small wiring leads rather than replacing them. This whole site is dedicated to that bike's ignition rehab. I'll post it here in case of future reference needs.

https://yamahaxs1100e.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/ignition-system-rehab/
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=543

Reading those sure brings back fond memories. When I bought that bike, I thought I'd never need another one - ever. haha.

 

[Shredder]

+1 to what tom said. Thanks! This info might come in handy someday.