Yamaha 115tlrz intermitent spark on 2 and 4

mibugnu

Recruit
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
4
Been doing a lot of reading trying to make sense of this issue, if anyone can help clarify it would be fabulous....

Heres the beef....
Fresh gas, boat gets used weekly almost year round. Ran fine yesterday morning. Took it out again yesterday afternoon, wouldn't get up on a plane.
Took it out again today to do some diagnosis. Same thing, no power, bogging when throttle is applied. Pulled the engine cover and while underway pulled spark plug wires to verify spark. Pulled #2, no change, Pulled #4, no change, Pulled #1 motor died, Pulled #3 motor died. Stopped and switched the port side ignition coils with the starbord side ignition coils. Same thing...no spark on 2 and 4, spark on 1 and 3. Ignition coils are good.
Pulled boat out of water and brought home.
Pulled sparkplugs out of 2 and 4, (grounded to cyl head bolt) cranked motor, no spark
Pulled sparkplugs out of 1 and 3, put them in 2 and 4 wires, no spark
(ie...still no spark on 2 and 4 cylinders)
Put sparkplugs from 2 and 4 into 1 and 3 wires, spark
Plugs are OK

Repeated above steps with plugs to double check results, now have spark on all cylinders. What?
Put plugs back in motor, fired it up. Pulled wires off plugs individually, all 4 sparking.

I have read that the usual culprit of one bank of cylinders not firing or firing intermitently is the coil/pulser/trigger assembly. And I have also read that trigger assemblies rarely go bad.

My questions to the forum people are....

Is there anything else on the motor that could be responsible for both cylinders, on one bank, losing spark at the same time and then getting spark back at the same time?

And

I've seen other post where it is suggested to test the "Switch box" (not sure what this refers to, or if this motor has one.

Also,

Can the trigger/pulser be bench tested or does it need to be on the motor?

Thank you, muchas gracias! for any help
 

rodbolt

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Sep 1, 2003
Messages
20,066
Re: Yamaha 115tlrz intermitent spark on 2 and 4

can be bench tested for resistance but the prefered method is with a peak reading multimeter and under a load.
w\b to w\g and 2.5V loaded cranking and 7V at 1500 RPM.
resistance is about 320 ohms.
no switch box's on yamahas,thats a mecury thing.
the CDI unit can fail and take out 2 cylinders as well.
no good test for the CDI other than input voltages and output voltages.
 

mibugnu

Recruit
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
4
Re: Yamaha 115tlrz intermitent spark on 2 and 4

Thanks rodbolt.

"the CDI unit can fail and take out 2 cylinders as well.
no good test for the CDI other than input voltages and output voltages. "

Have you ever seen a cdi fail, take out 2 cylinders, then start working again? Or when they fail are they dead for good?

Checked resistance, (cause the boat is out of the water) 309 ohms, but it is firing on all cylinders right now. Will take it out in the water tomorrow to try and see if I can duplicate the issue.
 

douglloyd

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Jun 13, 2005
Messages
147
Re: Yamaha 115tlrz intermitent spark on 2 and 4

Mine failed intermittently. Would you like to buy the trigger points from me I didn't need?
I bought a used CDI 10 years ago still working well.
 
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