What have I got myself into

First and foremost this is a great place. Crazy how much information is available. I was basically given a pile of wrong doing as far as my untrained eye can tell. It's been stripped (as you'll see in the pictures) rear suspension cut out, wiring is thrashed/gone and lots of other cool stuff. I did a lot of reading and looking around here and took the minimum wiring approach ( I had no choice, the harness was hacked up and likely for the same minimal wiring I'm attempting) for my super sweet 82 XJ750. Lined it all up, connect batt, press start and she turns over nicely. Cool now for checking spark. I can hear the tell arc in #1 so I let go of the start button. Long story short I check my boots #1 and #3 were cracked. Checked my caps only one showed resistance and had an ohm reading over 7. Checked my ignition coils... 1 and 4 coil (or "A" coil as it seems) read 2.7 when testing across the stinger and the "fire" wire directly in the plug clip but had no resistance to the plug wires. 2 and 3 "B" coil had nothing at all anywhere. So... If I'm doing right I may have had an intermittent spark on my "A" coil and nothing on the other.

I did turn it over with the #2 plug out and that cylinder had some compression (tested by feeling air move) which gives me hope. I didn't bother with the others.

Previous owner had mentioned an electrical issue.

So... Since I'm certain I at least had a bit of spark (from the arcing on #1) can I kinda assume my ignitor and or my rectifier are somewhat ok?

Here's the goodies



Before I started measuring ohms I moved the rectifier red wire and the r/w coil wire/s to a separate switch (one not connected to my solenoid switch or "hot side" of my solenoid, then to starter button) but rather switched directly at the battery. Same power source just separate switches. Which is my current question. Is that acceptable?

Next.
My rectifier has the 3 white wires, the red wire, the brown, the black and the green. The red should go direct to the hot side of my solenoid, correct?? The black should be a ground, is that correct??
The rest of the rectifier wiring goes into a bundle of electric tape that is run below the starter and to ( what I'm assuming is) the pickup coil??

Next.
My ignitor clip wires coming out of the "right or bottom right" connected plug are: top left- red/white, top right-orange' bottom left- black ( I had assumed ground), bottom right-grey that lead to ignition coils. Is that correct??

Next.
My ignitor clip wires coming out of the "left or bottom left" connected plug are: from top left- empty, top middle- orange, top right- black??
Bottom left- either brown or black with either a white or yellow stripe ( I cannot tell) bottom middle- grey, bottom right- empty. Three of those wires head down a taped bundle towards the pickup coil but the striped wire is cut and taped. What's the story there? Is that correct??

One more thing. In the rectifier bundle heading towards the pickup coil I have a mystery wire that is bundled at the rectifier but connected to nothing. Can this be explained???

Sorry for the lengthy post.
Here's a burnt plug cap resistor bit for fun


It's been a pleasure going over the material here. I'm just a bit of a dummie/ newb. Hope y'all can shed a little light for me. Thanks in advance

 

welcome to the forums
check your inbox

well first off member chacal sells sparkplug boots click his logo in upper right corner
you should also ohm out your pickup coils, and ignition coils
sounds like you need an ignition coil too.

specs
XJ750 air-cooled models:
Pick-up coils:
650 ohms +/- 20% = 520 ohms to 780 ohms acceptable range
Ignition Coils:

Primary side (input from main wiring harness):
2.5 ohms +/- 10% = 2.25 ohms - 2.75 ohms acceptable range

Secondary side (spark plug wires, without their end caps):
11K ohms +/- 20% = 8,800 ohms - 13,200 ohms acceptable range


Spark plug caps:
1981-83 models: 5K +/- 20% = 4,000 to 6,000 ohms per cap acceptable range
1984 RL models: 10K +/- 20% = 8,000 to 12,000 ohms per cap acceptable range

Spark plugs:0 ohms per plug

 

lots of good advice posted in this link
XJ4Ever - Supporting Vendor

are you interested in minimal wiring?
here are some diagrams

 

here's the wiring for a xj750 j maxim.
http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threa...im-xj750-j-wiring-diagram.103545/#post-542777
swap "a" coil into "b" coil position, see if the spark follows it

 

Thanks!