BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

well, reliability huh.. not. went out today , all fine, got back on my driveway, and upon restarting she decided one cyclinder was good enough..

Cylinder 1 , left when sitting on the bike I presume, has a duff coil . not quite done 14k .. not brilliant bmw...

I have heard of grease being applied to the bottom of the coil stick , or is it an old wives tale?

Has anyone bought coils from motorworks, or are Bmw more reliable though more expensive.

Bob

Bought a new stick coil from Pidcocks £114.00) .

Unsure which cylinder is No 1, I started her up to see which cylinder stayed cold, and hey ho, engine light went out and she ran on both.

Found these quotes

https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/whic ... 1.1143778/

Assumption is the mother of all feck ups.

On the GS911 cylinder 1 is on the righthand side of the engine as you sit on the bike.....

Yeah, you are right, HEX company messed up since BMW calls cylinder number 1 the left cylinder.

Tech at Pidcocks said no1 is the left cylinder whilst sitting on the bike.

Changed and erased codes and all good.

The fault came up whilst the bike was hot and the fan was running. I remembered that during the 12k service , I did not apply dialectric grease to

the coil sticks. This begs the question, had I applied grease to the coil sticks , would it have thrown a wobbly when the bike got really hot?

So is my now spare stick good or bad?

The new one had a very thin layer of grease on the boot . I need to grease the othe rside now.

Would BMW be able to test my old stick?

audibob2 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2023 2:24 pmThe new one had a very thin layer of grease on the boot.

Is the grease just external to make fitting and removal easier within the spark plug tunnel.

audibob2 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2023 2:24 pmWould BMW be able to test my old stick.

The Haynes manual for my 2012 Camhead says,
"In order to determine conclusively that an ignition coil is defective, it should be tested by a BMW dealer equipped with the diagnostic tester."

Hi David,

I presume the grease is for ease of removal, although I do remember reading some where about applying grease to high tension wires/caps to stop

"arcing" , but it was a long time ago and I am no sparky so I have no idea whether it was correct or not.

It was odd that mine "failed" when the temperature was high with the cooling fan running , and then worked in the morning when it was cold.

Would I trust it even if bmw say it is ok? no... The bike did have a slight stutter on the rev counter whilst idling whch has now improved .

so perhaps it ws a matter of time.

audibob2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:42 amIt was odd that mine "failed" when the temperature was high with the cooling fan running and then worked in the morning when it was cold.

Temperatue can effect electrical resistance. The coils sticks can be tested by measuring the primary & secondary coil resistances.

I saw that video too.

The old one is in the bin, not worth the risk though it might seem prudent to carry a new spare .

My old k100 would be laughing her head off..