Neither ignition coil is producing a spark.

I just bought a non running 1987 KZ305 off of craigslist. There is very little physical wear to the bike and it has about 18,000 miles on it. The former owner explained to me that it had quit working while out on a ride and has not started back up since. He said he took it to the local Kawasaki dealer and had a diagnostics done. They said it was likely a bad ignition coil. He didn't have the money to get it fixed at the time so he parked it. It has been parked for a year. I have cleaned it up and I believe it's nearly ready to go. I have put a new battery in and all the electronics appear to be working. It cranks and the lights all come on but it appears that neither of the ignition coil is producing a spark. I tested both coils and they appear to get good readings as described in the manual. I am thinking about buying a new ignition pack from ebay. I found a used one for $100. Can anyone please suggest any further testing I can do to ensure that this is what needs to be replaced. This is my first motorcycle and am eager to get her polished up and on the road. Thanks

You may have already done this, but the first thing I'd check is the voltage at the coils. The procedure should be in the manual along with the coil tests. Basically you just want to make sure that enough voltage is getting from the battery to the coils in the first place.

It should be just about equivalent to battery voltage, but a little drop off is normal.

Also, have you put in new spark plugs?

These may be obvious things, but those are usually the ones I tend to miss.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I put new plugs on. I have looked through the manual and it does describe how to test the ignition coil but i cant find anything related to the voltage coil. Where is that located on the bike?

Not a voltage coil, you're just checking voltage at the ignition coil.

You'd want to set your multimeter to measure voltage. Test the battery first by putting a lead on each of the battery terminals (should be around 12v).

Then go to your coil(s), you'll need to find the wire that feeds power to the coil. (You probably disconnected it to test the primary winding resistance.) With the key in the on position, check the voltage by putting one meter lead on that wire and the other to ground (use the negative battery terminal or the engine block).

You should get a reading that's very close to the reading you got at the battery.

Thanks again. I will go try this now and see what happens.

The Kawasaki 350 is a twin(I believe,could be wrong), so one ignition coil is shared for both cylinders. To check primary(small wires) side of the ignition coil. turn on the run/stop switch, and the ignition switch. You do not need to start the engine, as these are seperate circuits. If you're using a multimeter, put it in VDC(Volts Direct Current), range of 20, with the RED probe of the multimeter where the RED, or RED/YELLOW wire goes to the ignition coil, and the BLACK probe on either a good frame ground, or the Negative battery terminal.

You should see battery voltge(depending on other current draws of the circuit). If it's down around 8 volts or so, you have a corrosion problem & the bike won't run until that's repaired.

If no voltage, trace back the wiring to the run/stop switch, as it's the supplier of the ignition coils voltage/current, and may have suffered a solder joint failure.

I just checked it with a voltage meter in the the manner you described.it appears that the ignition coil wire is getting a very weak reading when the key is on and its grounded to the frame. almost no reading at all. Any ideas on what this could be?

Start with what MFolks suggested. Trace the wiring back to the run/stop switch and see if it needs to be cleaned or re-soldered.

See if there are some junction points between the coil and the run/stop switch where you can test for voltage. And see if you can do the same either at the switch or just the other side of it. The idea is to find the weak connection. Then you can fix it.

If you have a local electronics store(not Radio Shack this time), but one that carries the De-oxit D5 contact cleaner/preservative, spray all of the related elecrical connectors & switches. Sometimes opening them up,spraying & re-connecting, is about all you'll need to improve the connection.

www.deoxit.com is the electrical contact cleaners website. I use it on my Gpz,car,cordless phone charging cradles, and home electronics.

ok so i will undo the wiring harness and try to trace it down. I went ahead and ordered the ignition pack in the hopes that this will fix it. If that doesnt turn out to be the issue maybe Ill just re-sell it.

P.S. I found that the wires leading to the ignition kill switch on the kick stand were open and badly frayed. So i cut the kill switch off and tied the wires together. Still no spark though.

Remove the gas tank,as some Kawasaki's have a connector under the tank, that provides power to the ignition coils,also remove the headlight from it's housing, and inspect the wiring,for corrosion & possible wire damage. You should have on hand a colored wiring diagram for your bike, as troubleshooting will be easier. I think on the Kawasaki twins forum, they have wiring diagrams.