damage by running on one pot?

[plattd]

Hello, all--Went out to grab a bite on a beautiful February day when just before I got to my lunch spot, oops, the bike (54 pan) starts running on only one cylinder (front). Decided to go hungry and head for home. Problem solved with new coil, but here's the question: How much damage might I have done to the balance/longevity of the engine by running it home about 5 miles on one pot? Maybe 2 miles uphill, three down, and one last steep climb about 200 yards. I'm thinking these things are pretty robust and no harm done, but I'm willing to hear other thoughts. Thanks,
David

[john HD]

david,

other than diluting your oil a little with unburnt gas i don't think you would have harmed anything.

change your oil and ride it.

john

[Cotten]

David!

The effective motor balance was only changed while it wasn't firing.
Once the combustion force is restored, the effective balance is restored.

That's why they shake and run rough on one cylinder.

....Cotten

[fourthgear]

I would change to oil .
You can ,if you want, take the return line off and run the motor until you get clean oil. If you want to make sure you get all the contaminated oil out . Your call .

[plattd]

Thanks for the reminder about the oil being thinned out by unburned gas--I thought of it almost first thing, then moved on to other ideas and forgot about it just as fast. Getting old, I guess. So after the oil change the bike runs great with new coil and plugs. Here's the thing: the bike had become a real bear to start cold and didn't want to idle all that well unless it was really warmed up. The rear plug was sooty while the front one was tan. Those symptoms sure seemed to point to the dread manifold leak, and in fact I had made a pressure tester and ran around trying to find any suspicious bubbles. I know this procedure is almost gospel on this forum, but I just want to say to those out there with hard starting, uneven plug color, and poor idle---test your coil! I'm running a 12V shovel coil on the pan, and I'm sure I'm not alone there. I thought coils were either good or bad, but I'm here to tell you one tower can go half bad for many miles before it dies while the other still fires just fine. Nothing against the manifold leak test, but swapping out my coil sure was easy and made all the difference. Happy to be back to the 2 kick start (okay, 3). Cheers,
David

[duoglide58]

A couple of years ago I was about 4 miles from the house when I had a spark plug foul. It was during the summer, and by the time I got home I noticed that one front exhaust pipe was glowing red. Anyway, I have not noticed any degradation in performance since that episode.
Doug