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Sluggish Acceleration R50 -SOLVED!

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westeagle
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:12 pm

Re: Sluggish Acceleration R50

Post by westeagle »

MYSTERY SOLVED!

Thanks to my friend and highly respected Airhead Guru -George Thomas of Air Support in Kitchener Ontario Canada, the problem of sluggish acceleration is solved!

I sent George a video (wish I could do that on this new website,- would be a huge diagnostic tool for many people, but apparently its not an option) of each side of the R50 engine running independently, with the opposite spark plug unplugged, and he figured out what was happening:

The left side was very smooth and didn't miss a beat; however, on the right side, it was missing at times and luckily I had my points cover off and when it was missing you could hear multiple irregularly-timed sparking in the area of the points simultaneously.

Well the coil safety spark gap must have been bumped such that the safety gap on the right side was considerably less than the specified 11mm, thus the right spark was randomly jumping the gap, and there would be no spark at the spark plug every few strokes. This is the cause of the anemic acceleration I was experiencing and now with both coil safety gaps at 11mm, the machine runs like a dream! Such a simple oversight, -yet we look for complex causes.

What a relief! :D

Hopefully, this experience can help others with the same issue.

Enjoy your BMW's friends!
'57 R50; '73 R75/5 LWB

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schrader7032
Posts: 9014
Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:00 am
Location: San Antonio, TX
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Re: Sluggish Acceleration R50 -SOLVED!

Post by schrader7032 »

Nice find! Glad things are smooth again!
Kurt in S.A.
'78 R100/7 '69 R69S '52 R25/2
Fast. Neat. Average. Friendly. Good. Good.

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Beemer100
Posts: 148
Joined: Tue May 15, 2018 5:32 pm

Re: Sluggish Acceleration R50 -SOLVED!

Post by Beemer100 »

thanks for sharing the solution. That's what makes this forum so great!!

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