Won't Idle on all four - HELP!!! About to give up!!!

Okay, as soon as I get home (I'm stealing time from work, right now) I try the bottle... and the spray bottle, too.

Thanks for your help.

Okay, spray bottle results are: 2 & 3 hot enough to evaporate the water on contact. 1 & 4 just get wet.

So, now my mind at least is back to electrical, But what do you think?

The spray test points to an ignition related problem. It may be connections, but it seems you have already checked connectors so let's explore components. The most likely point of failure in decending order of liklihood are:

1. coils
2. pickup coils
3. igniter

I am not up on wiring color codes for the 550 models but in general, Kawasaki follows much the same pattern for all KZ models so lets first check the coils and eliminate them as a potential problem. First, with the bike's key turned off, check voltage at the BATTERY with a multi meter. Put the meter in VDC scale and see what voltage you are getting. It SHOULD be about ~12.3 VDC. Now turn the key on (don't start the bike). Put the positive lead (red) from your multimeter on the small lug on your RIGHT coil as you sit on the bike that has the power wire connecting to the that coil. This wire will be red, pink or yellow/red; the wire on the OTHER lug will be black or green... don't touch it. Put the negative multimeter lead (black lead) on a cylinder stud nut. You should be measuring about the same voltage as you measured at the battery. Repeat for the other coil.

OK... If you find there is NO power to one of the coils, note what color wire feeds that coil (the small black or green wire). If there is no coil power, there will be no spark. If you do find power, but it is degraded, that is antother issue. If you find adequate power (about 12VDC), let's move on.

Once you have determined there is power to the coils, next step is determine if you have a bad coil. Recall that each of the coils has a wire feeding it that comes from the igniter. One coil will be fed by a BLACK wire and this is your 1 and 4 coil. The coil fed by the GREEN wire is the 2 and 3 coil. Disconnect the spark plug leads. Remove the coils and swap the 1 & 4 coil for the 2 & 3 coil making sure that the coil that had previously been fed with the BLACK lead NOW has the GREEN lead attached. It will become the 2&3 coil... Start the bike and repeat the spray test after it warms a bit.

You will find that the problem with the non-firing cylinders either moves or doesn't move and your findings will dictate the next step. If the problem moves, you have either a bad coil or the plug wires are not connected securely to the coil. It seems more likely that the coil will be bad. If we find a bad coil, we can do some impedence measurements to check for internal shorting of the windings. If you find the problem STAYS on 1 & 4, this indicates either the pickup coils or igniter are faulty or wiring somewhere between.

Alright, so at the battery the voltage was 12.0 volt. I'm not worried aobut the slightly low voltage since the last time that I charged the battery was around mid spring and the only running of the bike that I have done is mostly just starting it up and running it in the garage while trying to get it running better. I fgure 12.0 isn't too bad actually.

Voltage at the coils with key on is 11.6 volts (with power to both). Swicthing coils resulted in no change to the condition. 1 & 4 are still not running while 2 & 3 seem to run fine. Hence, the coils are good, right?

So, the next step would be ignitor or pick up coils. The crazy part is that I have spark to those cylinders.

I was going to jump in here but George has probably forgotten more about some of this than I will ever know. Now is the time for me to shut up and listen and learn a few things for myself... By the way George, thanks for the very clear explanantions, and your patience. Your posts are always informative.

I agree. Thank you very much for this.

ok im ready,action!

After swapping coils, the 1 & 4 cylinders still don't spark. The voltages at the coils appear to be sufficient. The test for an igniter box is essentially to test for spark by connecting it directly to the battery so since you have spark on 1 & 4 plugs, that testing may not be needed. Since the problem points strongly to electrical issues, I don't want to jump to the next step till we have explored electrical stuff fully. Find the connector that comes off the pickup coils and connects to the igniter box. Put your multimeter in Ohms scale on X100 and measure the resistance between the BLACK and the BLUE pins on the connector. Then measure between the RED and YELLOW pins. You should have about ~400 to 500 Ohms resistance if memory serves. If a pickup coil is bad, the spark you are getting with a good IC Igniter box will be very poor; perhaps poor enough where you won't fire the mixture.

I also recommend that since you have this pin disconnected, use some spray contact cleaner on the pins and coat them with dielectic grease. Do the same for the other side of the igniter where the the wires come out and connect to the coils. If the pickup coils prove OK and the wiring is solid, the problem isn't electrical (ignition related) and the symptoms are just misleading.

Earlier you had mention that you had all the cylinders firing when jiggling the wires in the headlight shell (as I recall). There is nothing in the headlight shell that has any effect on the plugs firing EXCEPT the power to the coils and we have checked that. If you had a bad connection, ALL cylinders would drop out and kick back in at the same time... the only place where TWO cylinders could kick in and out intermittently because of a loose connection is the twin out connector above your valve cover. Hanging from the main wiring harness is a twin out connector. Your two coil hot wires come out of it. Since one side fires good and the other cuts in and out, disconnect both wires at that connector... use the spray contact cleaner and some dielectic grease...

That will finish up the electrical part of the checking. The ONLY other thing that could be wrong are BAD SPARK PLUGS. I had a customer who brought a GPz over awhile back... he had one cylinder cutting in and out and thought he had carb problems. Turned out, he had installed some very expensive aftermarket plugs... spitfires? well, something like that is what they were called. The one plug didn't fire at all and had NEVER fired on his bike. It was dead as a doornail... probably shorted internally. It is possible to have bad spark plugs so just change your plugs or at least swap 2&3 with 1&4 as part of the exercise although the odds of two plugs being shorted are really long. Let me know how this works out.

Okay, Ohm's at the connector are 440 on the red and yellow leads and 430 on the black and blue. Checking the leads that go to the coils, I seem to get about 4 ohms on each.

As for the plugs, I have already thought of the possibility of bad plugs and swapped them around to no avail.

Currently I have no dielectric greese to spray the connectors with, but should be able to get some on Wednesday. Barring that from having an amazing result, we've pretty much gone through electrical, right? I did read in my Clymers manual (which is often like reading a tabliod) that any problem you can seem to diagnos in electrical might just be a bad ignitor and you should swap it out with a known good one. Should I worry about that here? Or wait until we've checked a few more things out?

Post edited by: KB02, at: 2006/10/10 08:32

The connectors should be cleaned with contact cleaner and dielectic grease applied but I doubt that will solve your problem. The thing that has wasted much time to this point are the symptoms which point to an electrical problem but don't appear to be. Next thing that should be looked at is compression and the valves.

Have the valve clearances been checked? Has compression been checked. It could be an unhappy coincidence that 1&4 are down in compression relative to 2&3 (reason for the electrical issue checks). Anyway, most owners avoid checking valve clearances but it is a snap with a feeler gauge. Checking compression requires a gauge. I like the press-in type that can be used on almost any bike regardless of plug thread diameter. When you do your check, be sure that you hold the throttle all the way open.

Valves are as follows:
Cylinder: #1 #2 #3 #4
Exhaust: Inches .005 .006 .007 .007
MM .127 .125 .178 .178

Intake: Inches .006 .004 .007 .008
MM .125 .102 .178 .203

Compression: PSI 165 190 180 180

According to my Clymers manual, the intake is within spec, while the exhuast is a little tight. (1 & 2 more so than 3 & 4). As for compression, the Clymers manual says it should be around 160. Is the higher than normal numbers on 2 thru 4 a bad sign?

The valves may be a shade tight and the 15 PSI difference is probably a tad out of spec but I think the bike's compression really isn't an issue. Must be a carburetor related problem. First thing... check out the VM carb connection link on my web site and ensure the carbs are connected correctly.



Other quick things to check:
1. are vent lines pinched or plugged?
2. do you have a vacuum actuated petcock? If so, is it connected correctly? Does the bike exhibit same problem when in "PRI" position?
3. do you have an inline fuel filter? If so, when was it changed last? What brand?
4. Is there any sharp bend or kink in the fuel line from the tank to the carb fuel inlet?
5. Is there sediment in the tank that could clog the screen on your petcock?

These are the "easy" carb issues that can easily be checked and fixed. Once you have looked at these, we can move on, if necessary.