Ignition Coil Test?

I believe the reason I cant get my bike to turn over is my ignition coil. Does anyone know how to test an ignition coil?

Thanks,

 

You'll need a multimeter to measure primary and secondary resistances of your coils. Pull coils off of your bike. Test them this way: for primary resistance, put one lead of the meter in any of the two small connectors of a coil, and the other lead in the remaining connector. You should read 2.5 ohms + or - 10% if you have a Maxim 750.

For the secondary resistance, the multimeter leads should be connected to the spark plug wires. You should read 11Koms + or - 20% . If you get weird readings, unscrew your spark plug caps and probe the multimeter leads directly in the plug wire ends.

 

Get out your Ohm meter and test the primary and secondary sides.

Or do you mean an actual "bench test" to see it fire off the bike??

To see it fire ON the bike, make sure the coil fires thru 2 spark plugs held against the valve cover (you can crank the engine with the plugs out - just don't let sand fall in the holes)

You will see a weak blue spark - not a "HOT" yellow spark.

 

Actually, you should see 11K ohms +/- 20% WITHOUT the resistive plug caps attached. If the resistive caps are still installed, then the readings should be at least 10K ohms higher (depending on the model of the bike being tested) and is NOT the recommended way of testing them......as any deviation from specified levels of resistance could be due to either bad caps or a bad coil.....and you'd never know which it is!

The resistance spec in the Yamha, etc. manuals is correct (11K ohms +/- 20%) but the little testing diagram that they provide is incorrect.


Mccasks1, send us an e-mail and I'll send you a proper coil testing procedure.

 

Helps to put your bike in the signature too, so we know what bike your talking about.

 

Thanks guys, and my bike is a 1981 xj650, sorry about that.