2,3 coil possibly bad?

OKay I inherited a 79 or 80 (not sure, title says 80) kz1000 -

Newbie uhmmm yes!


At first the bike would not start at all - Cleaned carbs - - blah, blah....

Got it running - Sat for around a few days and go to start it - Nope would not start -


This is what I have found - The 2,3 coil on the right hand side of the bike when I am sitting on it does not produce spark - I know this because I took the wires off the coil (one at a time, not to mix them up) and put them on the left coil and I recieved a spark - So this tells me my wires are good but I am not receiving spark from the right coil (2,3) -


My question is would it be safe to say that my 2,3 coil is bad?

Or could it be a point problem?

I am not very keen on points (a litte before my time) so I am not sure which one it could be -


I was thinking about buying some new coils but I would like a second opinion first -

I have the dyna green coils - I think they are the 3 ohm ones???

Battery power to coil.
Points or ignitor signal to coil.

Thank you - I will let you know my findings

I suspect you need to know how to trouble shoot this issue or you wouldn't have posted... FIRST...

Put a multimeter POS lead on the lug on the 2/3 coil where the power wire is hooked in... it should be yellow/red. The wire from your points is on the other lug and green. Put the NEG lead on a frame ground. Turn the key on. If you have power, the power part is OK and if not, then you can ONLY have a bad wire going from the coil back to the two-out plug on the main harness where the OTHER power wire that is powering the 1/4 coil comes from and it wouldn't be firing if there was something wrong on the other side of that plug.

If you have power, then you can check the coil. Put your multimeter in OHMS and put it on the lowest setting. Keep your ignition switched off. Put your leads on the lugs where the power lead is and the green wire lead. You should have about 3.8 ohms impedence (primary coil windings are good). Then, switch to the 20K ohms scale and put your leads on where the plug wires connect or on the plug wire connections in the caps and you should have about 13K ohms for the Dyna 3ohm coils. This checks the secondary coil windings. If both test good we will look elsewhere. If you either don't read as I described, the coil is fried. These Dyna coils tend to crack when they get hot and they DO get hot so check for cracks. If the coil test OK and has cracked, fix the cracks with JB Weld else the coil will short when it gets damp out.

If you had the correct resistance, swap the 1/4 coil and 2/3 coil to see if the problem moves to the other side as a coil can measure fine but still be shorted. This is the final coil test.

Last, if the coils check out, then the problem is definitely your points or condensors... time to replace them both as a unit or replace them with a Dyna S igntion. This is a ONE TIME set up and then forget it type deal. They are also very cheap. Check www.z1enterprises.com for the best price. I stronly advise not buying USED ignition parts from eBay as most is junk (PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OBSERVATION). Perhaps I have already bought all the junk out there but I would stay away from used ignition coils or electronic igntions...

Wow thanks for the post - So I dove a little deeper into the bike today and come to find out this bike doesnt have points!

Like I said newbie


I found a unit called IC Igniter Kawasaki on it - This ties into the the coils - From the Igniter it goes to what use to be points - I guess someone swapped them out - I do have a Electronic Ignition - I attached a pic from ebay (I dont have a camera)




I am gonna go take another look around see if something is unplugged -

Post edited by: modest911, at: 2005/12/22 16:51



I found this post

kzrider.com/component/option,com_joomlab...atid,4/id,7302/#7302

Probably the same set up as I have

Post edited by: modest911, at: 2005/12/22 17:16


Okay so if I understand the above link properly - My next step would be to swap the coils around to see if the problem follows the coil - Correct?

Post edited by: modest911, at: 2005/12/22 17:27

I'd follow George's steps to troubleshoot the general electrical setup before going too much further. You could swap the two coils and see if the problem follows the coil, but George's advice should help to to diagnose both the coils and the surrounding electronics (including the wires and harnesses, which are often a problem on these older bikes).

I suggest the bike likely did have an electronic ignition originally. Do follow the steps I laid out. Once you have eliminated the coils as a potential source of the non-firing problem, then it is time to test the IC Igniter and the pickup coils which are the two pickups around the crankshaft under your points cover... that is the small cover on the bottom right of the engine. The steps involved in troubleshooting an electronic igntion are more involved and if I type them, I will put the stuff in an article and post it I guess. I can't recall all steps as there are BUNCHES of them for checking both the IC Igniter and pickup coils. All are easy to do but it is pretty detailed...

Ignitor testing.

testing

Can't delete the post as it would delete the useful post below it... If you can cut down the size of the scan you put on the page, that would be helpful as some of the stuff is missing on the right of the page. Also, the pick up coils part... if you could scan both this stuff and the part for the ic igniter, put it together and put it in the Filebase or send it in as an article... I will do it sometime but have to type it in as I can't scan from my KZ1000 manual...

Thanks George.
As you can see I am not a computor guru but try anyway. I will give your suggestion some thought I see if I can do. It is easy for me to scan so that part will be no problem.

Harry

The best test (when you know one is sparking and the other is not) for the spark-coils is to swap them. If the problem follows the coil, then you know the coil is bad.

If both spark-coils are good, the next easiest test is to measure the resistance of the pickup-coils. I believe the pairs are black-blue and red-yellow. Measure the resistance from black to blue, and then from red to yellow (at the connector near the ignitor). They should be in the range from 400 to 500 ohms each,(the 79 and 80 kz1000's may be a little different from the rest of the early 80's KZ's that I'm familiar with). More importantly, they should be within about 10% of each other. If they are, they are most likely good.

That leaves the ignitor (and possibly wiring). You can try ebay, or you can try to make your own:
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZgmHEImod.html

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2005/12/23 22:46