Electrical Issues

[MikeL]

I have a 52 FL that I bought from a guy who had restored a few years ago. It is fairly stock with a super e carb, 12 Volt and has points. I took it on a 350 mile trip and it worked great but I have been having issues since. Basically the bike has progressively got harder to start and was flooding at low idle. First I checked the carb and cleaned it, tested the manifold for leaks and then I discovered I wasn't getting much spark. When the bike would run it would idle fine but after about a block it would die and wouldn't start again. I checked the coil and it would only light up the test light every 9 or so kicks and it would get fairly hot just kicking it, so I thought there may be a coil problem so I tried new coil and same issues. Would it be the points or timing or something else??? This is my first older bike so I am not real sure what to look for in the points (I have checked them and they too only seem to spark intermitently).
Also I thought my battery may be bad but I have tried to start it with the charger hooked up.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[fourthgear]

Change the Condenser & try it & make sure all connections a sound & good mating of the point set to the timer plate.

Just because you have a charger on the batt. , doesn't mean it doesn't have a bad cell ,the charger won't help if thats the case. Have it load tested.

Could also be bad contacts or dirty ones on the ign. switch. A loose wire could also be a problem.

[the village idiot]

Hi, from my car mechanic days i know that starting fine when cold and not when hot can also be a bad coil. I've seen talk on this forum about 6 volt coils run on twelve volt systems. You might find an old auto repair place that can test the coil to see if it's bad. tvi