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TWO STEPS BACKWARDS......GOT NO SPARK NOW!!!

Discussion in 'XJ Technical Chat' started by stormxj550, May 5, 2010.

  1. stormxj550

    stormxj550 New Member

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    Ok, I know some of you guys have seen alot of my previous post and are probably getting tired of reading about my problems. BUT, my motorcycle knowledge is at best extremly BASIC. So I've been working on my 82 Xj550 Seca and I had an issue before of the bike starting and running great until it got hot and then it wouldn't start to save my life. BUT, I've taken TWO HUGE STEPS BACKWARDS in my issues.

    I have know completely lost spark to my spark plugs. I'm hoping the two issues are directly connected to each other but I'm not sure.....at this point I'm not sure of much EXCEPT....I don't know much about fixing Motorcycles. So anyway I was going to work on the bike yesterday and I just started checking the basics, battery 12V, fuel in the carb bolws, fuses good, spark in the spark plugs....great at this point......then about 10 minutes later after I had tried to crank it over a couple times.....well I don't have spark anymore.
    SO, let me just tell you guys everything I know (which won’t take long) and did and see if ya’ll can give me any direction.

    1. Checked battery, it’s reading 12v
    2. Checked started solenoid connections
    3. Checked the connection at the started
    4. Checked the starter brushes
    5. Checked the voltage to the Red/white stripe wire on each ignition coil and had 12V.
    6. Checked the primary resistance going into the ignition coils and got a flux of 2 to 3 ohms, my meter doesn’t break it down to decimals.
    7. Checked the secondary resistance across spark plug wires (with and without plug caps on) but didn’t get any reading.
    8. Looked at the pickup coil….didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but didn’t know what test to run on it.

    Now, I’m honestly not to familiar with checking resistance, I use my ohm meter setting on my voltmeter at work just for checking continuity between connections so I’m not sure if when I checked the resistance across the plug wire If I didn’t get a reading because my meter is the right type or what. I’m leaning towards thinking the ignition coils are bad because of my failure to get a reading on the secondary resistance, but like I said not sure if I did something wrong, but ALSO I have a hard time believing that both ignition coils just happen to go bad at the exact same time.

    Also what I’m wondering is- the orange and the gray wire that goes to the opposite ignition coils (which has the same color code as two of the wires in the pickup coil) are they suppose to give a reading of some type? (volts, or ohms) If so what?

    I’m just not very good at this stuff and have a very limited selection of resources and tools so I’m trying to fix this bike but not having a lot of luck. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

    SO, let me just tell you guys everything I know (which won’t take long) and did and see if ya’ll can give me any direction.

    1.Checked battery, it’s reading 12v
    2. Checked started solenoid connections
    3. Checked the connection at the started
    4. Checked the starter brushes
    5. Checked the voltage to the Red/white stripe wire on each ignition coil and had 12V.
    6. Checked the primary resistance going into the ignition coils and got a flux of 2 to 3 ohms, my meter doesn’t break it down to decimals.
    7. Checked the secondary resistance across spark plug wires (with and without plug caps on) but didn’t get any reading.
    8. Looked at the pickup coil….didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but didn’t know what test to run on it.

    Now, I’m honestly not to familiar with checking resistance, I use my ohm meter setting on my voltmeter at work just for checking continuity between connections so I’m not sure if when I checked the resistance across the plug wire If I didn’t get a reading because my meter is the right type or what. I’m leaning towards thinking the ignition coils are bad because of my failure to get a reading on the secondary resistance, but like I said not sure if I did something wrong, but ALSO I have a hard time believing that both ignition coils just happen to go bad at the exact same time.

    Also what I’m wondering is- the orange and the gray wire that goes to the opposite ignition coils (which has the same color code as two of the wires in the pickup coil) are they suppose to give a reading of some type? (volts, or ohms) If so what?

    I’m just not very good at this stuff and have a very limited selection of resources and tools so I’m trying to fix this bike but not having a lot of luck. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
     
  2. cds1984

    cds1984 Well-Known Member

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    Hi,
    The secondary windings in the ignition coils should show 11k ohms plus/minus 20% (courtesy of the XJCD) so your meter probably needs to be set to a higher ohm range before it will register.

    It would be strange for both coils to suddenly go open circuit so I would be looking at the TCI which controls the coil output directly.

    I, and a lot of other guys, refurbished by stripping the TCI apart and completely resoldering all the joints just to be sure but in saying that... the connections into the TCI could be the problem too, just from a corrosion perspective.

    Going through and unplugging and replugging all the plugs and checking for broken/corroded wires can make all the difference. (continuity testing is ideal for suspect wires at this point too.)

    Sorry I don't have a straight up fix but replacing the ignition coils may not get you any closer to fixing the fault at this point.

    The gray and orange wires come directly from the TCI so you would be measuring a pulse really.
     

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  3. yamaman

    yamaman Member

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    Location:
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    you should absolutely 100% see resistance accross the coils on the plug wires as long as you have a Ohm setting on your meter. on the XJ650 (can't imagine being much different for yours) the high tension leads should have a resistance of 11KOhms (kilo ohms) +/-20% and the low tension leads (small wires going 'into' the coils) should be 2.5Ohms +/- 10%
     

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