Wierd Ignition Problem Road King

Appreciate any ideas & help... I recently bought a 98 Road King and the test ride went fine, trailered it home 2.5 hrs and went to start it and no go so let it set till next morning. Ran the battery down so used a 12amp charger to get the new battery back up and tried starting it while the charger was still hooked up. Finally got it started and went for a cruise. Stopped and shut it off a few times and started back home, at that point I had not opened the throttle fully so I did and all of a sudden it sputtered and was only running on front cyl. Make a long story short the bike runs fine until I open the throttle all the way and then #2 cyl looses spark to the plug. Not a fuel problem but for some reason full throttle kills the spark to the plug wire on #2 cyl. It has a Crane HI-4 ignition and I'm wondering if I did some damage when I was trying to start it while the 12amp charger was working at the same time.... I'm planning on replacing the plug wires just to eliminate that possibility so that will leave the coil and Crane ignition as the only other possible culprits, I think..... Any ideas?

I am not that familiar with the older bikes but is this one fuel injected with the old MM system?

They replaced the original carb with a Mikuni....

Is that the Crane nose cone ignition?? There were a few problems with them going south because of the heat...But... check for loose grounds and corroded connections first... If it does happen to turn out to be the ignition,replace it with an Ultima ignition,they're not too expensive and are the same as the Dyna 2000i and the heat doesn't seem to bother them as much...

I can't answer your question about it being a "Crane nose cone ignition" ....... All I know for sure is it is marked " CRANE HI-4 "
Thanks for the tip on the Ultima....
Electrical, what a joy.... I'd much rather spend the "tracking down the problem time" to "riding time" but I guess you can't have one without the other...
Thanx

There's 2 types...one is an external module...it would mount under the side cover on your RK and the nose cone type the whole unit mounts under your timing cover

Here's a pic of the 2 types....1st pic is external module, 2nd is nose cone unit

http://www.cranecams.com/uploads/instructions/90004001b.pdf

It looks like figure #3 and is located behind a cover on the right side of the motor at the bottom under the air cleaner....

OK...it's a nose cone unit...figure 3 is a diagram on how it's wired in...these are the ones there were some problems with,not saying that's your problem,but it's a possibility...you want to eliminate the simple stuff first...
There's not a lot of wiring in the ignition circuit so go through it from the battery to ignition switch down to the coil and coil to module,making sure connections are clean and tight...if everything's good,then I'd try a new set of plugs...

A way to test to see if the Hi-4 is bad is to start the bike and let it idle,then take a hair dryer and put some heat to the module(not wide open,but you wanna warm it up),if it starts to misfire when it gets a little warm,the module is the problem

I talked to Crane tech & they said to switch the 2 primary wires to the coil & the plug wires and if the problem moved from the rear cyl to the frt cyl the problem is in the coil, if not, the problem is in the ignition module... Gonna check it out tomorrow, a little damp here in Southern Indiana today... I'll let you know what I find out & thanks for your help.

Good luck...:cheers:

Drained and cleaned the tank, filter & carb problem is not fuel, no spark to rear cyl after warmed up and full throttle... Crane tech said it's kinda common, either coil or crane ignition most likely the culprit... I talked to Crane tech & they said to switch the 2 primary wires to the coil & the plug wires and if the problem moved from the rear cyl to the frt cyl the problem is in the coil, if not, the problem is in the ignition module...
Thanx, will let ya'll know what I find in a few days.......

Sounds like you're on the problem, but just in case I'll add that my '99 'King (not an Evo like yours) had similar symptom some years ago. Turned out to just be a bad spark plug cable. If the Crane check doesn't work, that cable is something else to check.
:cheers:

Thanx.... before I do anything I'm gonna try switching the plug wires, if it does the same thing but moves from rear to front cyl it would be the plug wire breaking down under load..... I love doing electrical stuff but I don't enjoy or have test equip to do "electronics"...... that's why at almost 62 yrs of age I'm definately old school. I remember when you could set points with a match book cover.... Ahhhhhhh, the good old days... Gonna go out and do some work on it this afternoon, we'll see what happens... thanx to everyone ")

Keep us posted.... A regular VOM/mulitmeter would be enough to check most electronic problems....Yeah,the good old days....that's why I always had a pack of cigarette papers in my pocket :roflmao:

I still use the VOM I built in the mid 60's...... Remember "Archer Kits" ???? Radio Shack..

Heh,so you've been into electronics for a while....nope,never did built my own AM radio...too busy with the cigarette papers. lol

I guess that was the only reason u carried that pack of papers too:roflmao:

As far as I can remember

well the only problem i found is that they would run better if i used the zig zag papers if i used the bugler they were not as smooth . must have been the skunk weed .lol!:roflmao: