O.K., Help the visually impaired...

I removed my coils to replace them (stock for stock), and got interupted in the middle(Man gotta eat!). Now I cant figure which wires went to the coils!! Color combinations wont help much, I'm color blind(reds/Greens Blues/Purples) added to the age of the wire, and colors about useless to me. If some one can help me out it would be great! I know each coil has two wires, Obviously one is ground, and the other is trigger, but can I trace the "trigger" back to a certain point? I would consider doing WG's coil mod at the same time, but still need the source of the trigger. My bike is a 79 KZ1000ST. Any help is appreciated!

Ghostwriter

One of the wires is not a ground... one is from your IC igniter and the other is a power wire. Since you are color blind, find the power wire!

The wires going to the RIGHT side coil are the 2/3 (green) wire and the power wire. You can trace the power wire from a two output connector over your valve cover. The green wire comes out of a mutlipin connector coming off your IC Igniter. The left side coil is the 1/4 coil and it also has a power wire coming from the same two output connector and a black wire coming out of the multipin connector off your IC Igniter.

At this point, I suggest you find that multipin connector coming off the IC Igniter and get someone to point out the black wire and the green wire and then make labels or tags for those wires. The wire color key is the only way of IDing those wires as they both come from a connector hanging off the IC Igniter. If you had a Dyna S, it would also be kind of hard to trace wiring since the wires run in a gray plastic sheath and you would have to actually split the whole sheath to trace wiring.

Sorry I can't offer better help with this... where do you live? Maybe a KZRider member lives close enough and would be willing to help with this project... put your bike year/model in your sig along with your location (standard advice for everyone) to make problem solving easier.

If you want, post a picture or two of the wires near the coils and we can photoshop the picture and put directions on what wires go where...

Doug, I think the wires from his coils go to a connector that comes off his ignitor. He will need someone to help him mark the wires and I can't imagine a picture helping if he can't see the colors. He hasn't been back yet, since I made that suggestion so he may have figured this problem out.

oh I've been back, and Yes I think I have it right, I checked for spark on each plug wire, and its there. I pulled the carbs and cleaned them up again (for the third time!!) and put the charger on last night. I hope to fire her up this afternoon, after I buy a new vacuum line and fuel line. This bike is a victim of working on it for a week, then it sits for a few months and gums up the carbs again!! I hope to get it running and actually drive it more this time!
I actually thought about a picture!! I was going to label each wire A B C and have some one say A is red B is green etc...
I remember when I first got the bike running it was a user here that suggested a new battery, stating that it had enough juice to spin the starter well, but not enough for a good spark, which was correct, so I have to ask, how would you kickstart one these beasts if you had no battery... and on a related note, will the battery charge up while riding? Theres not really an alternator.....

George, I was kindof thinking that if he could take a photo in color of the wires, (and didn't move anything until we could help) we could label the photo for him telling him what wire was what color and where it goes, but I get caught up in that kind of stuff since it is what I know and it might not be very practical!

Your battery should be charging when the bike is running if the wiring is able to carry enough voltage. You can check this by putting a meter on the battery before you start the bike and making sure you have 12.6 or more volts, starting the bike and watching the meter when you rev the bike. It should increase the voltage up to around 14 volts when you are revved up to around 4k I believe...