After a crash (tje), both motor and rider may have some consequential damage. Sometimes that is a clear matter, sometimes not….
Fall and rise
"Oh, that's all life," my grandmother sighed happily. After a glide on some gravel it was a matter of getting up, setting the engine straight (standing back to the engine and then 'walking up' the knees with the back stretched) starting and going again. That went well up to a few hundred meters from home. Then the twin started to walk on just one cylinder.
After two days later the stiffness of the fall was a bit off the muscles, it was examined why the right cylinder had stopped. There were no sparks on the right. That already explained a lot. A new spark plug didn't make things better. The spark plug wire was tight and clean in the ignition coil. Just to be sure, I also checked the left cylinder.
It suddenly appeared that it no longer had any sparks. Electronically I am very limited in gift. In the case of electronic search, I quickly tend to set the engine on fire, kick the dog and start arguing with my love. But I had another option: Was the dead man's switch the problem? That's just a toggle switch with two wires. I get that. The dead man's button was alive and well. The failure remained inexplicable for the time being.
The electronics then?
Motivated by blunt despair - I am a freelancer and electronic ignition is expensive - I sat on the stool next to the engine and rumbled mournfully with the cable harness. A plastic shatter fell with a tap. It bumped against the block and landed right between my feet. I wriggled a little more with the cable harness and looked through the wires, the frame and the coil on the right. There at the ignition coil a wire with an AMP plug stabbed a bit nagging. With the ignition coil mounted I could not reach it.
So the ignition coil was removed from its protected location under and between the frame tubes. At the low-voltage section a piece of dust had broken out of the housing. The plug had come loose. When the plug was plugged in again, the motor did it again ... For a moment. The ignition coil was measured through and pale. A used copy was ordered from TLM. That was at home the next morning. After assembly, the old twin ran smoothly again.
Inexplicable: How can a ignition coil fail?
But the question is and remains how a protected built-in ignition coil could break after an innocent slide that only caused a few scratches on the crash bar. Or was there simply the famous "coincidence of circumstances"?
Who knows may say.
In any case, the lesson is: Expect the unexpected too '
The Guzzi is now already 13D trouble-free km's further! And the two tons are coming 🙂
Good that you made it! TIP, you can also use another ignition coil, for example from a jap. Many Japanese 4 cylinders have 2 ignition coils, and you can use one of those ignition coils, I also did with my bmw boxer r80rt. But I also understand that you want the original, greetings Rene. (I also got that tip from someone, the coils of a jap are good and never break, Japanese perfection)
@Rene, with a boxer you can definitely NOT with a Guzzi.
If you are wondering why, in a boxer both pistons come to the top dead center at the same time, one time a spark is needed on the left and a further circle on the right, that is with a double-ended ignition coil. A Guzzi is an 90 degree twin, which does not run inflammation regularly, 270-450 is a boxer 360-360 crankshaft degree. So you need two separate ignition coils there, or one with a power distributor (V700, etc.)