1 and 4 not firing

1980 KZ750E. Cleaned the carbs, new plugs, wires and caps and battery. 2 and 3 are firing and getting hot but 1 and 4 are cold. Tested the coils according to the manual that came with the bike and they seem to be fine. I'm not the best with electrical, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. The bikes pretty clean but hasn't been run in 3 yrs.

Does your bike have ignition points or the Kawasaki supplied electronic ignition?

Try this first:

Ohm Checking Pickup(Pulsing) Coils

The pickup coils on the Kawasaki’s with the factory supplied electronic ignition can sometimes fail or become intermittent due to heat and vibration.

1.Trace back from where the pick up coils are mounted,(under a right side CD sized cover) locate and disconnect a small 4 pin connector. Using a multi-meter set on OHMS and range of X 100 check between the BLUE and BLACK wires(#1 and #4 sparkplug wires) for between 360- 540 OHMS.

2.For #2 and #3 sparkplugs the wire colors will be YELLOW and RED, again 360-540 OHMS.

3.If the pickup coils are suspect of failing due to heat, they can be stressed using a hair dryer without the need of the engine running.

4.A replacement set of pickup coils might be obtained from a dealer who serviced the police Kawasaki’s.

5. If replacement pickup coils are not available, your next choice would be to order a Dyna “S” electronic ignition system from www.z1enterprises.com It replaces the IC igniter with a smaller module located where the mechanical ignition advancer was mounted.
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If the pulsing(pick up) coils check good, it might be a bad ignition coil. These can be checked using an ohm meter. Set the meter on OHMS and the lowest range in the OHMS scale.

Disconnect any wiring going to the ignition coil,the primary(small wires) side might read 2.2 to 3.0 OHMS or so.Read where the small wires went.

For the next test, the ohm meter will have to be changed to a higher OHM scale to read the secondary side of the coils maybe the 20K range.

With the sparkplug cables/leads removed, use the ohm meter to read the two brass spikes inside the two ports, they should read 10.4 to 15.6 K(thousand) OHMS.

If you have points, the ignition coils will test the same.

The bike has factory electronic (edited, sorry about the confusion).

azr wrote:

1980 KZ750E. Cleaned the carbs, new plugs, wires and caps and battery. 2 and 3 are firing and getting hot but 1 and 4 are cold. Tested the coils according to the manual that came with the bike and they seem to be fine. I'm not the best with electrical, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. The bikes pretty clean but hasn't been run in 3 yrs.

Are you getting spark at the 1 & 4 plugs? If not, then check the voltage at the coil and see what it is. It should be the same as the other coil. ~10-11 volts with the key on and the motor not running.

A 1980 with points? I thought they went electronic in '79?

Samwell wrote:

azr wrote:

A 1980 with points? I thought they went electronic in '79?

The factory shop manual shows the 1980 750 E model with electronic ignition.

Check for spark on 1 & 4. If no spark, and as you say the coils tested ok, check the set of points for 1&4 to make sure they're clean and gapped correctly. If you find the points are pitted, you may want to consider new points and condensers. Ed

The 1980 750E has electronic ignition. There are no points. 2 pickup coils, IC box, 2 ignition coils. See if there is voltage going into both ignition coils. Also check the resistance in both the primary and secondary coils. Those three items are simple to do and free.

Have you tried swaping the coil leads?

Appreciate all the help guys, sorry about the mistake with points/electronic ignition, don't drink and post is the moto I guess. I'm going back at it today, I'll let you know what I find. Thanks again.

Pick up coil for #1 and 4 is giving no reading. I'll order a new one and go from there. Any one know where to buy these, ever diagram I look at on line does even show the pick-up coil.

hmmm... Sounds kinda like what i'm dealing with. I have a 1981 LTD-1000. When I take it out, it runs well but after about twenty minutes, or so, the 1st and 4th cylinders quit.
The 2nd and 3rd are running fine. A lose inspection revealed some charred plastic and cracking in the plug caps so I was just going to replace those, but after pulling the plugs and seeing that #1 and #4 are both cutting out, I am thinking coil.