OK, last week I had ordered a new Dyna Brown Coil from Rick at Motorrad Elektrik (A very friendly and helpful guy, I might add). It arrived within 4 business days and came with everything needed to install it. I hadn't been experiencing any problems with Tillie that one would attribute to a bad coil, but decided that I'd take a proactive approach to addressing the dreaded coil cracking problem rather than wait to be stranded in the rain somewhere.
I took some photos, in case it would be helpful to the less mechanically inclined. While under there, I also took the opportunity to cleanoff the heatsink on the ignition control unit and reinstall it with new, quality heatsink paste between the ICU and its aluminum heatsink.
First, here is a photo of the area of interest, with the fuel tank removed. you can see the OEM coil on its aluminum alloy bracket toward the middle of the photo, and the ICU with its aluminum heatsink to the left (just in front of the large rectangular silver "box"...
I removed the OEM coil and installed the Dyna "brown" coil using the brackets and hardware provided. They also provide you with instructions, which are correct. Here is a pic with the new coil installed (plugwires not yet connected) and with the ICU unbolted from its holder. I used a brass brush (lightly) and some emery cloth to clean the residue from the heatsink and metal backing of the ICU.
Make sure that both mating surfaces of the ICU and heatsink are clean and smooth. Use a silicon heatsink paste (obtainable from many places, include the everyday Radio Shack stores here in the US)
Closer inspection of the original coil showed that IT HAD INDEED BEGUN TO CRACK. Again, I hadn't had ANY problems with it to date, but had also been avoiding riding in heavy rains, and I am SURE that it was only a matter of time before I got left on the road someplace. you can see the cracking that had formed on the front end of the coil
here:
At this point, the bleepin batteries in my digital camera died, so I wasn't able to post a pic of the completely finished project, but I am sure that you get the idea !
So, I recommend that anyone still running the original OEM coils in their 80-84 airheads - even if you aren't presently experiencing problems - consider getting the coil replaced with another unit. I tried to start Tillie up to test the new coil, etc. but unfortunately the cool temps (25F (-5C)in my garage right now) and low state of the battery didn't get her going the first crack, and I'm still awaiting the new pair of battery tenders to arrive for the bikes.
Hope that this is of some use to someone !
Topic: Who knows the darkness that lurks beneath the tank (Read 956 times)