My FJ1200 keeps dying on me. I think it's a coil. Can anyone help?

[jhangmann]

Hi Eveyone  I bought my 1986 FJ1200 a few months ago and have had this problem since day 1.  It starts right up and runs fine for a while then just dies. It does it in gear on the Freeway and in neutral at a stop sign.  If I wait 10-15 minutes it will start again and run for about a mile then it dies. If I wait a few hours it will start and run for a while, then die again. It's not the vent in the gas cap. My guess is it's a coil that is getting too hot. Does that sound right? Thanks for your help

[Dan Filetti]

Oh the freeway?  My coil was bad, and it began to fail when the bike sat at a stop sign, with the heat of the engine radiating upward, began to heat the coil, but it did not fail when the bike was moving.

Yours could be different though.  In my case the bike would 'cough' a few times then stall, so it was easy to put a timing light on the coil and see the failed spark attempt.  You may need to measure resistance of the coils themselves. 

That said, it may not be the coil at all.  As I said, the fact that it does it on the freeway, makes me wonder.

Dan

[oldktmdude]

Check the fuel line routing. On the older models it is very important that they follow the factory routing. As the engine builds up heat, the fuel line softens and can crimp itself, shutting off the fuel supply. When left for some time to cool down, fuel has filled the carbs again, allowing another short run. It may also be your coils, failing when hot, as Dan has suggested. If you have a heat gun, try running the engine (using aux fuel source) and applying heat to the coil packs and see if this causes the problem. Good luck with it. It can be very frustrating with this kind of problem. It's usually something very simple and easy to fix once found. Regards, Pete.