1980 z1r starter button smokes ignitor ground.

The starter runs with the positive and negative battery cables. The positive is broken by the solenoid switch. The negative is directly grounded to the engine/ motor block. If this negative circuit is compromised, loose or high resistance, then the current will flow through the next available source. This could be the throttle cable, or the chassis ground circuit, which would be your Black/ Yellow. That Black/ yellow should only be for the chassis electrical and not the high amp draw of the starter motor circuit. Make sure your Negative battery cable is clean and tight to the motor/ engine block.

Yeah, what he said. Exactly what I tried to say. Make sure your starter ground doesn't feed back through your chassis grd. ( BLK/Y)

Diagram for reference (courtesy of Mcdroid).
kzrider.com/filebase/cat_view/99-1980/147-kawasaki-kz-1000-d3

The thing that is puzzling, is that normally the body of the igniter should not be conductive to the ground wire of the igniter. So this would not have been a path for the starter ground. However, I'm only familiar with the smaller igniters that came out in 1981. The earlier version was a larger, different-looking unit, which maybe had the body of the igniter grounded.

When you remove the igniter, see if the body has continuity to the ground wire. If so, then that would support BlackZ1R's and Motorhead's theory.

Good point, and much larger picture of the wiring diagram. Now that I can see it with these old eyes, it's close the the one I have in my manual.
The ignitor doesn't show to be grounded in my diagram.

had a hectic weekend guys an did not get to look at the z1r yet .

thanks for all the help,it will be a couple nights before i can get next to it with anytime to look at it.

i will post my findings as soon as i have some.

leon

ok fella's.

here is the deal.

first i want to thank each of you for your time and help.

but i gotta tell ya,

while each of you reached out to me through your computer blackz1r actually got into his pickup and drove ten hours from mississippi to oklahoma and helped me figure out the problem and fix it :woohoo: .

just can't say enough good stuff about kevin,he's a great guy.
thanks for the help man.

what we found was that when i last replaced my negative battery cable i had used a lug that had a larger radius on the lug where it bolted to the engine case.the engine cases had a spot machined right around the area the ground bolts to the engine.my lug was larger than this spotfaced area.with my painted engine cases it meant that the cable lug sat up on top of the paint and was not touching the bare aluminum.
it was only grounding at first,through the bolt after it started rusting i guess it got enough rust to keep the cable from making contact.the ground wire going to my ignitor is the closest(shortest path) to the ground so it got smoked first.the starter wouldn't turn over because it just flat wasn't getting a good enough ground connection.

we fixed the ground and we plugged the ignitor back in and the bike fired up and ran .

all seems well,so i plan to shrink wrap the ground wire for the ignitor and run it.

can't thank kevin (blackz1r)enough.

he's like a "southern kz evangelist" :lol: he drove to oklahoma and "laid hands on"and helped me fix my problem. :evil:

thanks again guys.

come on back anytime kevin.

leon

Kudos to BlackZ1r ! That's a long way to make a house call!

531blackbanshee wrote: ok fella's.

here is the deal.

first i want to thank each of you for your time and help.

but i gotta tell ya,

while each of you reached out to me through your computer blackz1r actually got into his pickup and drove ten hours from mississippi to oklahoma and helped me figure out the problem and fix it :woohoo: .

just can't say enough good stuff about kevin,he's a great guy.
thanks for the help man.

what we found was that when i last replaced my negative battery cable i had used a lug that had a larger radius on the lug where it bolted to the engine case.the engine cases had a spot machined right around the area the ground bolts to the engine.my lug was larger than this spotfaced area.with my painted engine cases it meant that the cable lug sat up on top of the paint and was not touching the bare aluminum.
it was only grounding at first,through the bolt after it started rusting i guess it got enough rust to keep the cable from making contact.the ground wire going to my ignitor is the closest(shortest path) to the ground so it got smoked first.the starter wouldn't turn over because it just flat wasn't getting a good enough ground connection.

we fixed the ground and we plugged the ignitor back in and the bike fired up and ran .

all seems well,so i plan to shrink wrap the ground wire for the ignitor and run it.

can't thank kevin (blackz1r)enough.

he's like a "southern kz evangelist" :lol: he drove to oklahoma and "laid hands on"and helped me fix my problem. :evil:

thanks again guys.

come on back anytime kevin.

leon

Hahaha, dang Leon, you wouldn't stretch the truth just a little would you? :whistle:
Leon, you didn't tell them I was on a business trip to Tulsa man, I've had 8 PMs asking for bike repairs since you posted this. :laugh: J/K

I did visit Leon and we did repair his nicely done 1980 Z1-R.
It turned out to be a simple ground problem like we suspected. We also checked the starter cable to make sure it wasn't shorting to the engine or starter motor case where it runs under the sprocket cover.
As it turns out, the igniter is conductive to ground on this bike. We checked two other igniters and they showed the same readings. It evidently didn't harm the box internally. Hope it runs ok after you get her back on the road.

Had a great time and enjoyed the visit brother. Hate I missed out on the ride yesterday.
You're welcome for the "laying" on of hands from the "KZ evangelist"...thass right!!!!! hahahaha.

wow now thats a house call!!