Spark - no Spark, please help

Raven -

I'm going to guess that you have a ground fault somewhere. The CDI and coil should not be intermittent - they should just fail.

If you can, reverse the clutch and side stand bypasses to see if they are the culprit. If you didn't do them then they may not have been done well and reliably.

Check all of your ground connections to make sure that they are clean and tight. Your neutral light problem seems like a grounding problem.

Inspect the main harness from the front of the bike back to the seat, looking for chafed areas where the wires may be shorting against something.

Does the bike ever stop running after you've started it?

Tom

Raven7777 said:

Thanks Tom for the info, you have been a big help. The bike started missing once when I was riding it, but pushed thru it an kept running. How many grounds are there? To bypass the side stand you just solder the two wire together ? Thanks again Dan

Click to expand...

Dan -

Egad, I'm not sure. There's a ground coming off the battery, one coming off the starter, a frame ground lead that is on the upper coil mount bolt, an engine ground lead...

Pull the tank off so you can see a lot of stuff. Start looking for wiring harness terminals. Loosen and then tighten every one that you can see, especially the ones associated with the coil. Grounds, positives, it don't matter. If it looks electrical, tighten and loosen it.

Oh, and this may be silly, but remove and firmly replace the coil lead to the spark plug - make sure that sucker is really clipped in.

Fixing intermittent problems is a real PITA, so you have to use the shotgun approach. Down side is that once you've fixed it you may not know what was wrong .

And yes, the side stand bypass is done by shorting the two main harness wires together.

Hope you get it solved!

Tom

Look for wires and connectors like in this picture:



That black and yellow wire at the upper coil mounting bolt is a ground wire. Make sure wires like this are not broken, then loosen and tighten the connection to make sure it is secure.

Unplug and re-plug connectors like the one in the picture, again to make sure they are making good connections. A bit of dielectric grease in the connector is a good bit of preventative care.

This may be your suspect area, as it is the coil and regulator. Do the same for the Igniter module.

Tom

After a little thought.....

You have a known neutral light issue....indicating possible ground problem...

Neutral safety is tied to both starter AND ignition, and if not properly grounded, COULD interrupt flow to CDI....

So...

I would start...

With the diode pack that is under the tank, up near the steering head.



This will eliminate switch shorts, goblins, etc. If this gets you spark, you can rig a permanent ground to the frame or to the battery.

If this does not bring joy, I would focus on coil...

And I know of no good way to test the CDI or any other electronic component on a KLR 650. They may read "OK", but when replaced, you get spark. Or not. YMMV.