Electrical issues... new bike...

Hey guys, just picked up an XJ650RJ 1982...

I paid $375 for it. Needs some work. Turns over good.
Needs a battery, clutch cable, throttle cable, and some gas tank repair.

Got some gas in it today, disconnected the bad clutch cable, throttle cable works its just rough.
Hotwired it the way the guy did since the started button doesn't work...
Starter ran, plenty of gas in the tank and it was flowing...
No pops. Pulled the plugs, no sparks.
Got ONE single spark. Never got it back.

Now, the Ignitor box is not attached, the screws are gone. Does this have to be grounded to the bike?
Where should I start, what should I look for first? I highly doubt it is just the plugs... but maybe? It's been sitting about 2 years and the exhaust is real rusted, so is inside the tank. But it has a fuel filter on it and flows free.

Where to start? These types of sites have been my savior for this type of stuff before... I found a site with the full microfiche so I should be ok there. Where should I look for the parts I need?

Thanks guys... look forward to responses.
-Doug

 

sent you a pm

 

First thing you should do is replace the plugs if they are old. Then check your coils. I believe they should have a resistance of 700 ohms +/- 20%. Hope that helps.

 

Coil resistance should be 2.5 ohms +/1 10% on the primary(from the TCI) side and 11,000 ohms +/- 20% on the secondary (to the plugs) side....and on the secondary side, the resistance is measured with the plug boot caps OFF of the plug wires.

xyxj650 has the right specs above for the PICK-UP coils, down behind the left front crankcase cover.

No, the TCI box does not ground directly to the frame, but rather from the wire bundle running to it.

 

Never dealt with any real wiring, but I am sure I can figure this out. Just gonna take a while to research coils and such, and I need to find my electric meter... I have found a website with all the microfiche as I said above, so hopefully that helps me identify the coils and where I need to test..? Maybe I should just try and find a haynes manual?
Thanks for the help guys, hope I can figure this out.

Where can I find the cables I need and a battery to fit it?
I am pretty mechanically inclined, but just new to some electrical... Thanks again.

 

Any gas in the Fuel Bowls two years ago turned into a varnish that is probably all over the Lower-end of the Carbs.
The chance that you are going to get the Bike to run is pretty low without doing a lot of work to bring the Fuel Delivery System up to snuff.

Adding Chemicals and solvents will only make the situation worse.
You need to remove the Carbs and have them cleaned and prepared to supply fuel to the engine.

On a bike that has set for two years ... there's NO shortcut.
Remove the Carbs and disassemble them.
Clean everything down to bare aluminum.
Spray Carb Cleaner in the Passages and flush-out the two years of sitting around doing nothing.

While the Carbs are off ... do a Compression Test.

Once you are confident that the Engine is sound and will run ... Get it running and tuned before you start dropping money on anything other than what you need to make the Engine run.

Once you have the Engine running and tuned ... you feel alot better about buying the tires, brakes and other things you will need to get the bike fully operational.

You'll be spending money on a dead horse until you know and hear it run right ... with an Idle and throttle response.

You have a lot of work to do.
Good luck with it.
Keep us posted on your progress!

 

Well here's good news - my buddy got spark today. He disconnected something that didn't look like a good connection. Then put it back together, and voila, spark.

I have done carbs before that is for sure... but what I am worried about is 4 carbs... what if one carb isn't tuned the same way? How the heck do yo adjust the idle on 4 carbs? Is it all linked? I have only worked on single carb things before.

Any tricks to getting the carbs out?

Thanks again guys.

 

Getting the carbs out of the bike can be a bit of a hassle but there is the usual way and there is the easier way.

The easier way is once you have loosened the screws on the retaining circlips on the manifold side and the carb intake boots you push the intake boots into the airbox. This gives you a little more free play tio wiggle the carbs out of the manifolds and out the left side of the bike.

Getting them in is much the same in reverse but it helps to sparay some WD40 on the intake manifolds themselves to create a slippery surface so you can re-insert the carbs over the lip and seated well into the manifolds themselves.

 

you can do a search for "carb sync" on the "search forums" .. there is a ton of good info.. there are also stickies on this matter from the admins as well as plenty of pictures and step by step process for you.. this is a major issue with these bikes so there is plenty of help in there