| Author | Message | ||
     Nobuell |
I finished my 10K service with exception to the plugs and wires. Sometimes when riding in the rain, the motor will run rough but clears up when dry. I used a garden hose to spray around the motor to duplicate the rough running and found that it occurs when water is sprayed towards the left side air scoop. I believe there is something amiss with the plug wires. I ordered and just received new irridium plugs and Magnecor wires. I never replaced the plugs and wires before but it does not seem to bad when looking at the service manual. How long does it take? Is this a couple hour job or longer? If it is just a couple hours, I will do the job tonight. I do not want the bike to be down this weekend. Thanks for your help. | ||
| Andrejs2112 |
Couple of hours with some basic skills and patience. It's hard to get to the wires. | ||
| Ulyscol |
Get yourself a proper pair of spark plug boot pliers. Makes the job easier in my opinion. | ||
| Bienhoabob |
For the wires, take off the air cover and base plate. You can leave wires connected, just flip the base over to the seat. Then you just unplug and plug in. Left side scoop comes off to expose front spark plug. Rear plug takes patience. Swivel 12" extension is needed. Put anti-seize on plug thread. A piece of fuel line connected to the top of the plug helps to get the plug in place for the rear cylinder. Yes, get a spark plug boot puller and have some patience. It's easy to cross thread the rear, be care, don't force anything. | ||
| Ulynut |
The hardest part is getting the velocity stack back on the air box base plate thing. I used a piece of string around the inside of the flange on the velocity stack, pushed down on the base plate, and pulled the string around until it was properly seated. Kind of like putting a windshield in a car. A little lubricant around the stack made it even easier. I'm no mechanic, and it took me about 50 minutes to do. | ||
| Nobuell |
Thanks for all of the tips. Tim | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Gahhh. My X1 plugs = 3 minutes. The price of progress, I guess. | ||
| Nobuell |
Natexlh1000 I know what you mean. My last bike was a BMW twin. Tim | ||
| Fung |
Ulyscol Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 05:52 pm: Get yourself a proper pair of spark plug boot pliers. Makes the job easier in my opinion. Hell yes! | ||
| Cyclonedon |
may I suggest small hands with tiny fingers. I have neither! | ||
| Rwven |
The plugs are a bit of a pain. I happened to have a trim removal tool with a forked end and a little plastic ball at the fulcrum. It pops the boots off pretty well. I have the swivel socket for the rear plug and I used a combination wrench for the front plug. I couldn't get a torque wrench on the front plug so I put he plugs in until the gaskets contacted, I torqued the rear keeping track of how many degrees (roughly) it took to torque properly and I then turned the front plug the same amount. Don't forget the anti-seize! Getting the boots back on was a minor PITA using the same forked tool I pried them off with. I squirted some dielectric jell in them also.... | ||
| Nobuell |
The plugs and wires are installed. I had no problems just took my time and made sure the plugs were installed correctly. Thanks for all of the suggestions especially the boot tool recommendation. It would have been almost impossible to install the new wires without it. Tim | ||
| Conchop |
The irridiums are 100kmile plugs - set em and forget em! | ||
| Nobuell |
I rode the XT this weekend after installing the Iridium plugs and Magnecor wires. It may be my imagination, but the bike does seem to run better at low RPMs and feels like it accelerates better. I found the gap of the old plugs to be around 0.029". Could that noticeably alter performance? I also found that the plug boot of the forward cylinder was egg shaped. That may have caused my wet running issue addressed at the top of the post. I have not had a chance to wet the bike down, although it may be raining when I leave work today. The gaps of the Iridiums were factory set at 0.030". I carefully re-gapped them to the Buell spec. of 0.035". |
