First KZ! Step One: Spark

Hi Gang,

Picked up my first KZ. She's a '79 750-B4 Twin with 19K miles on it. The wiring harness is crisp and compression feels good. I was hoping to hook up a battery and fire her up with some new oil but didn't get any spark. I picked up a new coil and confirmed with multimeter that everything including points is getting 12v. If I bypass my points I'm able to spark the blue wire against my muffler; so I assume I have a points/condenser problem. Points were cleaned, gapped and timing looks good. My Kawi manual says "a bad condenser may result in weak spark" But I'm getting ZERO spark. My question is...CAN A BAD CONDENSER ELEMINATE ALL SPARK? My new coil was mounted precariously so I wrapped a bunch of copper wire through the mounts to make sure there wasn't a grounding issue with the coil.

I don't mind paying $15 Freight on a $7 condenser if that's whats broken. Just want some other opinions first.

Thanks

Hemp wrote: ...'79 750-B4 Twin...new coil and confirmed with multimeter that everything including points is getting 12v. If I bypass my points I'm able to spark the blue wire against my muffler; so I assume I have a points/condenser problem. Points were cleaned, gapped and timing looks good. My Kawi manual says "a bad condenser may result in weak spark" But I'm getting ZERO spark. My question is...CAN A BAD CONDENSER ELEMINATE ALL SPARK? My new coil was mounted precariously so I wrapped a bunch of copper wire through the mounts to make sure there wasn't a grounding issue with the coil....

Hello, Hemp, and WELCOME to KZr!

The coil need NOT be grounded.
And perhaps NOT a points/condenser problem.

Here's how it's supposed to work:
Coil primary winding grounds through closed points.
When points open, the primary winding becomes ungrounded, which causes the coil to fire through the "secondary loop" which includes coil secondary winding, plug wires, caps, plugs, and engine head providing electrical connection between the plug bases.

Failure of conductivity within the secondary loop will result in zero plug spark.
Check the service manual's section about ohm testing the secondary loop.

For example, a failed connection where one plug wire connects to a plug cap will result in zero plug spark -- meaning no spark on either plug.

Did the new coil come with plug wires already built into the coil?

Good Fortune!

Hi Patton,

Thanks for responding. I've enjoyed reading many of your posts while searching through this forum. I purchased the common Emgo coil with integral cables. I plugged the coil's yellow wire to my harnes's yellow/red wire (power supply from run switch) and the coil's black wire to the blue wire heading to the points.

I'll make sure my new plug caps are connected and test the new coil. And I'll take off that stupid looking copper wire :silly:

The Kawasaki's come with a 5000 ohm internal, non serviceable resistor in the sparkplug cap. They should be tested before doing any other work on the ignition system. New caps can be bought at most Japanese motorcycle shops, or at www.z1enterprises.com