Fried my stator ?

Hi all,

My bike is a 1981 kz1000j.

Last week I had a blown fuse, and apparently my regulator rectifier was giving too high output. I bought a new shindegen fh020 regulator rectifier, but still had to wire it.

Now onto my problem. I connected the positive with the negative, and – with the + in the red stator connector. I was almost certain I was correct but I wasn’t, what a bummer. So when I tried to hook up my battery I fried my ground wire going from the RR connector to the side of the stator. It was only connected for 2 seconds but it smoked all the insulation from the ground black yellow wire going to the stator.

I reconnected everything correctly and the bike couldn’t start. It turns over very well but wouldn’t spark. Eventually it did seem to spark and after several tries it fired on one cylinder but couldn’t keep going. The bike was able to turn, but only for 2 or 3 seconds. I tried for half an hour, sometimes it did jump and ran on one cylinder. 

I could only measure resistance which was 0,5 ohm on yellow wires, and didn’t short to ground. Seemed ok. But I cannot get the bike running to measure output. But could I have fried the stator? Or do I have to rewire the ground wire because of that shorting? Before it ran perfectly.

 

Remove the reg/rec completely. Charge the battery. Make sure to replace any burned wires.  Then see if the bike will run on battery alone.  That way you can confirm the ignition and other electrical components are working.  Then while running, do the ac tests as specified in the manual.  Then if the stator is ok, get a new reg/rec.

Ok Will do.battery was well charged and RR disconnected. Battery is charging at the moment. 

Only thing that's left is that cooked wire and stator etc.. Will dismantle tomorrow ! 

Ok I replaced the wiring and disconnected RR but still the same. Got it running but only on 1 cylinder. Bogged down and shut off. I did measure high resistance on the ic igniter on 1 test. Could this be fried ? Pick up coil test came out good. Whats your thought on the bike running on only 1 cylinder ? 

I would think if its coils then it would run on 2 cylinders.

Ok so did the igniter resistance test:

+ Black / yellow to ,- black green 497 and 496 while it should be infinite.

+ Black green to - black / yellow. Infinite while it should give reading between 300 and 500.

+ Red to - black/yellow 875 which is too high- black yellow to + red 590

Pick up coils not getting a reading on male connectors to IC igniter.
To coils on female connector:

Between 420 and 430 between blue red and black and yellow
And I cannot understand why its only running on 1 cylinder. Maybe even fried my coils but they checked out at 2.5 ohms and 4.9. last one maybe high.

If it can run on one cylinder, that means at least one out of the two circuits on the igniter is functioning.  That means the bike should run on at least two cylinders.  1 & 4 are a pair, and 2 & 3 are a pair.  If one cylinder of a pair is sparking, the other should as well.  If the coil has a problem or a plug or plug wire has a problem, one cylinder of a pair might not fire, but this symptom cannot be caused by the igniter.  If that circuit works for one cylinder of a pair, it is also working for the other cylinder of the pair.

So maybe check plug wires or swap coils.

Hooking up the reg/rec backward wouldn't necessarily affect the igniter.  That should only affect the reg/rec, battery, and associated wiring, which is usually mostly limited to the ground wires and the reg/rec output wire to the battery.

Regarding that, there should be no ground wire (black/yellow) connected directly to the stator, but you mentioned one.  Perhaps that ground wire is bundled with the stator wires, but it probably goes to something else.  However, if it melted, there is a chance it melted some stator wiring along with it, so check all of that carefully.

None of that should really have affected the ignition unless there were some ignition wires bundled with reg/rec wires somewhere and it melted.  You may have some serious melted wiring issues to look for.  

I would pull off all of the ignition parts and check them off the bike, that way you can eliminate the wiring loom as a culprit.  This diagram is for a 550, but the 1000 would basically be the same.  Tapping the pole pieces on the pickups with a steel screwdriver should cause the coils to spark.

Note: make sure each coil has a path for the spark to go from one plug wire to the other.  Failing to do that can damage the coil and/or igniter.

Thanks for all that explanation. Well it fried all the insulation from the ground wire going from the RR connector to where it split up to a ground wire going to the igniter and the other one going into the loom ( not to the stator you're right ) for 2 seconds. The rest of the wiring looked good but I didn't go further into the loom since it looked good after where the ground wire splitted up.

I dont understand why its not firing on 2 cylinders. 

Ok so by making a path for the coils, I could strap the coil wire from 1-4 next to each other with a gap in between and same for 2-3 ? Or does it have to jump from the coil sparking wire to a non sparking wire from the other coil ? 

I cannot strap it close to the frame so that the spark jumps to the grounding frame ? It has to jump from one wire to another ?

Im only asking to make sure Im not frying more stuff ! Thanks a lot! 

Sorry now I see in your picture that there has to be a path between coil wires 2-3 and 1-4 of 1/4". 

Just another question then could the high resistance on the ignitor not be caused by the short  ,?

+ Red to - black/yellow 875 which is too high max 700 according to the manual
 

Yes, you can jump all the plug wires to the same piece of metal. It doesn't have to be part of the bike, just any piece of metal.  Or you can jump 1 and 4 to one piece of metal, and 2 and 3 to another piece of metal.  Basically each coil needs its own path for spark.  That path need not be connected to the bike or anything else, just to the other plug wire of the same coil.  Each coil has its own "loop" path for the spark.

I don't put much weight in the resistance tests on the igniter.  They can be meaningless depending on if the manufacturer changed the design or your meter does not match the meter they used to devise the test.  A resistance test is not a definitive test for non-linear semiconductors like diodes etc.  The meter itself can affect the results.  Resistance checks are only good for things that act like a resistor.  Coils, even though they are inductors, act like resistors when checked by a meter so they can be tested for faults using a resistance check, but things like rectifiers, regulators, and igniters don't always act like resistors, so the results can be wildly off even though those items are in working order.

I just checked for spark and Im getting spark on all 4 leads by tapping the pick up coil ends. So that means that the igniter and ignition coils are ok ? Its a Nice blue spark.

Does it also mean the ground wire to the igniter is ok ? 

Ok so now I'm stumped and I dont understand anymore. 

So I checked spark with the plug wires with a path to a metal plate and cranked the engine with the starter button. Im getting spark on all 4 leads !!!

When I put plug caps on and spark plug on Im not getting spark except for cylinder 2. 

I cleaned the plugs ( they are 50 km old) and no spark.

Im stumped because before I got that short the bike ran perfect. Before I changed the RR i did blow a fuse but after replacing it it ran perfect.

Could the short damage the plug caps or spark plugs ? Or is the spark too weak? 

You said that when you put the plug caps and plugs on, you lose spark. Do you mean that you have removed the caps from the wires? If so, perhaps the caps are no longer making good contact with the core of the wire. Carefully check the little spike in the boots to be sure none have broken off or are otherwise damaged. Also check the end of each high tension lead to be sure the wire is available for the cap and that there is no corrosion. If in doubt, you can cut off 1/8 to 1/4 inch of the lead so you have a fresh wire end to work with.
If the caps have resistors, they could be fried. New caps would solve that.
As frustrating as it might be, it is possible to get bad new spark plugs, especially if they are NGK clones. There are a lot of NGK fakes on the market, especially when buying online.