Stopped working

[Azoroth]

So yesterday my bike was running fine. Today I had to take my truck to work so didn't ride. When I got home, I was going to run the bike to warm it up a little to change the oil... Cranks but doesnt start.

Long story short, I have no spark. Took the coils off and tested them. Get about 2k ohm on the primary side on both. Secondary on one of the coils is 21k ohm and 27 k ohm on the other. Just replaced the coils not that long ago and has been running great since then. Until about 2 hours ago.

Couple questions...

~Could the Ignition box be a problem?/How to test?
~How can I test the feeds into the coil primaries off the bike?
~Are the coils being 5k ohms out of tolerance totally stop the spark? (Last time they went out it was a very week spark. But could still see the spark.)

Thanks for any help. Kinda frustrating when you try to plan a ride for a month then the night before the ride the bike randomly decides to no work. Sigh...

[natemoen]

Were the plug cams on or off when you did the test? Should be 15k +/-10% without the caps and each cap is 5k for a total addition of 10 more with the caps.

Now for the other side. Are you sure of your reading? Should only be either 1.5 or 3 (not thousand, just single digit numbers here). You said you swapped out coils. What did you swap to? Different OEM coils or aftermarket coils?

'80 had 1.5 ohm coils and then used a 1.5 ohm ballast resistor to create the 3 ohms required by the ignition system.

So we need a little more info and a confirmation of your reading on the small wires from the coils. If you really are getting 2k then that's the problem.

[Azoroth]

Yeah that's what I meant. 2 ohms not 2k ohms

[CaptonZap]

Don't know if it will help, but you might read through this thread;

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37593

There is some information in it that might be of some use to you.

Hang in there, CZ

[natemoen]

Yeah that's what I meant. 2 ohms not 2k ohms

What kind of coils did you put on it?

[Azoroth]

Well I figured it out. It was one of the pick up coil wires. I had pulled the timing cover off to look at the wires. Didn't pull on the insulation though. But it starting working. So put the cover back on and it wouldn't work. Took it back off and found the broken wire. All better now.

[natemoen]

Glad you got it figured out!

[Azoroth]

Well so much for it being fixed. It ran fine for a while. Ran like normal when I went over to my dad's house but then when I went to run some errands, it started to lose power. It would bog down but then would randomly pick back up. (Bout gave me whiplash a few time from the unexpected surge.)

It runs fine when at idle but when I'm moving it has the issue. If the time was somehow messed up when I fixed the pick-up wire, would that cause my problems?

[BA80]

Check those pickups again.

[motoman]

Check those pickups again.

+1...........U forgot to pull on them, trying to seperate them every inch......give it a go and report back......

[DGXSER]

There is a post on here somehere by DBeardslee of how to change the pickup wires from the connectors all the way up to the pick-up coils I bleieve. What you describe is pretty indicative of the pick-up coils wiring being the problem..still.

[Azoroth]

Well I took the timing cover back off. Cleaned everthing up... Again... Put it back together. Re soldered the connections. Seems to have fixed it. It was just weird that I just did everything just the same, yet it still had a problem. Another thing was that it had a different symptom though. Damn electrical problems.

[natemoen]

Did you replace the whole wire or just reconnect the broken part?