1982 Kawasaki kz550 LTD no response in cluster

TONS of progress today, after only one week of having this bike that sat for 25 years, and having no experience with bikes, I got the throttle unstuck and had the bike running (only for short periods of time and with a engine starter spray) but starting at that! Going to take the bike to a local shop to have the carbs taken out, cleaned and tuned, which is what I believe is making the bike not able to stay running, seems to jump around the RPM's then shut off. tons of gunk came out of the short hose coming out of the crank case, and filled my garage decently with smoke. took some videos that I may be able to upload to youtube if anyone wants!

Sure, link up a couple of videos to the you-tube.
By the way what did you fix or replace to get power to and through the ignition circuit?

My brothers friend was just doing that fuse jump with a screwdriver after I had fixed the throttle and I hit the starter button by accident and heard it crank! but it only worked with the key in the on position, and it seems like at least one of the wires in the ignition is bad because I think something in the engine isn't getting a signal because the engine wont stay running, also think it is due to dirty carbs. the new ignition switch will be here tomorrow night so I will be posting the results of installing that later tomorrow!

So the new ignition has been put on the bike and still no electrical signal whatsoever... >.<, losing hope. Not sure where to check next honestly, wish I had someone with a little bit more knowledge of the electronics on these bikes here to help me!

Thats to bad, I was hoping it would work for you. Still the fact that last I had got from you was that the white wire at the Ignition switch had No Power.
So it feeds power into the switch, then when you turn it On it powers the bike. So you need to go back to checking the circuit for the Main Fuse/ White wire to the Ignition switch. Make sure you have power through the fuse going into the white wire, maybe probe the wire itself. It needs to go all the way to the switch, so the switch can then power the rest when turned to ON.

So probe from the white main fuse in the fuse box to the power power in the harness to the ignition or on the ignition itself? and I'm checking voltage or ohms?

Thanks,
Ben

As long as you have the Battery Charged and hooked up, Main fuse in place. Use DC Volts. Ohm's are for checking when you have no voltage present, so you would then remove the Main fuse.
So go back and set your meter to DCvolts. Black lead on the battery Negative, Positive/ Red lead to test where there is voltage. First of course is to confirm battery power at both terminals. Then move to the main fuse, power on both side, like I said you may want to probe the white wire say an inch past the fuse clip. No go back up to the head light bucket, and the Ignition switch connector. Check for power there at the White wire. This is where you were having issues.

So I hooked the black probe to the negative, and when I put the red probe (with dc voltage to 20) on the multimeter to the white wires on the harness I get a signal, but when I plug the harness into the new ignition and open up the back of the ignition and touch the white wires i get nothing?

I'm getting signal to the ignition switch when the key is in the off position?

So you measure the Battery voltage at the Main Fuse, both sides, right?
But when you move to the Connector for the ignition switch in the head light housing you get No voltage? With the connector there unplugged, right? So your just checking the White Wire. You need power there.
While your there check all of the wires in the connector for power, if any report back.

Bkirk24 wrote: I'm getting signal to the ignition switch when the key is in the off position?

So this is on the white wire, Key Off, you measure Battery voltage? Key On Nothing?
If this is so. Go back to the battery. Key Off Voltage, what is it? Key On voltage what is it?

With the key on and off the battery voltage is 12.13