Running on Just One Cylinder?

[bpratt18]

Hey Gang,
I was riding my 84 vt700 home the other day when all of a sudden the power dropped and I could barely make it home. I felt the exhaust pipe of the rear cylinder and it was cold..not good. I'm looking for possible reasons, any suggestions? I'm really hoping it's not seized, is there a good way to check? I figured putting it in gear, pulling the clutch in and then getting a running start before popping the clutch is a good method. But I've had a motor seize before (found out after ripping it apart the piston rod bearings were shot) and it passed this test (meaning it rolled instead of coming to a dead stop). Also, I should note that I was having some cooling issues and the temp gauge was reading pretty high right before it lost power. Thanks!

[bpratt18]

Just realized there is a bunch of stuff I should do first before posting here, sorry. I'll come back after I've checked the following.
1) Spark?
2)Spark plug color
3)carbs clean?

[ZackDaniels]

The coils going is fairly common on those bikes. If you find you're not getting spark try swapping the plugs and see if there's still no spark. If the plugs don't make a difference your troubleshooting tips and tricks are a forum "vt700 bad coils" search away.

[John Hopkins]

As each cylinder has two plugs you should still have a hot cylinder even with one plug faulty, agree with the coils though or one of the carbs..I am lazy so I would just connect a spare sparkplug to one of the HT leads and use a piece of wood to hold the thread against the metal fin of the cylinder then look at the electrode for a spark..If there is no spark I would swap the coils to see if the other cylinder dies..if there is a spark I would look at the carb.

John.

[bpratt18]

Thanks John and Zack, I'll try your suggestions this weekend (hopefully sooner) and post the results.