......when you disconnect one of the HT leads and the engine sounds the same!

She was running a bit, er, lumpy, to say the least, so I took out the plugs. Only one was a nice brown colour. I cleaned them up a bit and put them back in. The bike now pulls like new. Reason the plugs were black is no doubt the number of times I tried to start her on a partially charged battery after the winter lay-off, with choke, without choke, with throttle, without throttle...

Question: Does it hurt the bike to ride on three cylinders?

Recommendation: Only use an optimiser after you've given a new/discharged battery a real kick up the ar*e with a full-on charger.

Thanks folks.

 

Well I've been in the same situation. Haven't riden it for a few years got it going and rode 3 miles to the dealers for the mot and wasn't too impressed with the performance. " Its running on three mate " he said. .

Made it back OK. Cleaned out the carbs which for 50miles made her run fine. Now I'm still struggling with a rich mixture and lumpy idle as per my other thread.

Cheers

 

hmm. I wouldn't want to run on three for too long since all the fuel going in to the cylinder and not being burned might wash the oil off the cylinder wall a bit. I suspect that the top compression ring would cop a bit of wear. Short term (running it, going for a quick ride to see if it starts to run on four etc.) wouldn't do any harm. I don't think you need to worry since it's pulling like a train again but if you're concerned do a compression test and compare cylinders...I wouldn't bother though, just ride it!