My bike hates me...everything's new but she's fowling plugs...

Well I started what I thought would be my last day of work on the KZ400 yesterday and it did not end as I'd hoped...



Got all of that wiring done, threw the unfinished rear fender so we could get the turn wired, threw in a new electronic flasher only to find out the the right side turn is shorting internally...big time...like billowing smoke when you turn it on shorting...

Well I left the turns disconnected until I could find a replacement...damn chinese parts...and took it for a spin.

Only took five or six kicks to get it rolling and I took her for a spin once warm. On full accell she sputtered a little and cleared up and ripped. Over the next 5 or 6 passes up the street it got progressively less peppy and then just bloody quit. I pulle dit into the drive and tried to kick it over only to see that the nuetral light and head light where just barely glowing (brand new battery). I turned off the key took it back around to the shop and let it sit for 10 mins or so, went back over and all of the lights were at full power! I disconected the headlamp just to minimize the load on the bike and tried to kick it over...nothing.

Pulled the plugs and they're black as sin...where do I go from here guys? The season's almost over and I'm stumpted. Everything is new (battery, coil, petcock, rectifier, regulator, oil, filter, carbs were set and cleaned last summer...) HELP!!!

Sounds like you have a charging problem. If the bike is running only on battery, as it operates, the battery will discharge and the voltage to the coils will become progressively less. Once the voltage starts getting poor, the plugs foul and you will pull into the driveway with a dim headlight and fouled plugs.

First thing to do is to quit assuming that everything you did or the parts you installed were good. I would FIRST check the battery for cells being sulfated. It is common for new bike owners to charge a little cheapo motorcycle battery with a charger intended for bigger batteries. If the battery charges initially too quick or with too high a voltage, it ruins the cells. Also, if a new battery is charged properly then sits for a year; being allowed to discharge, the cells can go bad.

CHECK EACH CELL - Buy a small and cheap hydrometer... looks like an eyedropper with colored balls. Put a small hose on the snout and draw in some battery from each cell in turn. If any of the balls fail to float, the cell is dying. If none float, the cell is totally dead. Once they start dying, you can be sure that they will be fully dead in short order. Battery bad? Replace and charge correctly. Battery good, go on...

Check your stator output. Take off the three wires coming off your stator that plug into the regulator and rectifier. With the bike running, check AC voltages between every pair of wires (three check). The AC voltages should be consistent at idle then at 4K rpm. Your shop manual should tell you how much voltage you should have. If you don't get the voltage or close to the voltage specified, replace your stator. If you do get in the ball park, go on....

Check wiring! OK... The three wires that come off the stator, clean the ends and lube with dielectric grease. If they go into a multipin connector, disconnect and clean the pins and grease with dielectric grease. You can use electrical contact cleaner you can buy at Wallys, an autoparts or a computer store. Clean the connectors coming off the regulator and rectifier bridge. There should be a white wire coming off the regulator... it should plug into a dual connector and one leg out will be to the hot terminal on your starter solenoid. The other will be to your main fuse in the fuse box. Clean the white wire or white/red wire connectors real good, dab with dielectric grease and make sure the connections are solid.

Last regulator check. Since you have lights, your rectifier bridge is turning AC to DC. The regulator controls the amount of DC being made. Get a multimeter. Put it in VDC scale in one of the lower ranges so it can measure 12VDC and put the probes on the battery terminals (POS TO POS and NEG TO NEG) with the bike running. At idle, you should see nominal 12.5VDC and at 4000 rpm you should see 14.5VDC. If you don't see 14.5VDC at 4K rpm, then either the connections to the regulator are not good... like the brown wire (sense wire) or the ground which is black or black/yellow or the regulator is bad. Replace and then recheck the voltages.

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll see what I can find this next
week. At the moment I' working about 65hrs/week so I don't have
much of any time for the bike. This is why I was really hoping
to have it on the road yesterday...

When I manage to justify funding it I'll likely just take it to
a specialist and having it gone through. This is my first bike
project and I'm still learning, I've speant a lot of time
getting it to this level and at this point I just want a
relatively reliable bike to go enjoy when I want...

Damn nice write up WG! That should be in some area here so we can just point to it and say "see"!!! :blink:

Actually, several of WG's posts should be assembled into one thread and stickied at the top of the forum, and titled "READ THIS BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS, OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!!".

Sure would cut down on answering the same question forty eleben times