Kawi2strokes.com Forum

I am working on resurrecting the 69 barn find H1 I bought 7 or 8 years ago. It was parked in a barn in 1976.

As purchased it had no spark. I am guessing this is why it was parked in the first place. So far:

1. The original boxes tested bad. Replaced with one of Jim's boxes. Still no spark.
2. Signal Coil was open circuit. Replaced with a used one I bought from Jess Freeby. I now have a nice spark on the left and right cylinders but not the center cylinder.
3. Inspected the distributor cap and rotor and ohm'ed out the plug wire from the distributor cap contact in the cap to the plug cap. Have good continuity. Tried again no spark on center cylinder. Since it was a simple change to test for spark I replaced the Center Plug Wire with a new one. Still no spark on center cylinder.

I am not sure where to look next.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have!

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Tenere 700 / Africa Twin / Goldwing / Super Tenere / WR250R / GS1000S / GT750 / H2 / H1

Be sure the plug is good.

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Answers are here: http://kawatriple.com/

I have tried it with the plugs that spark on the left and right wires.

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Tenere 700 / Africa Twin / Goldwing / Super Tenere / WR250R / GS1000S / GT750 / H2 / H1

Having continuity is half of what it needs. The other half is to not have a short to ground, or a place where it arcs to ground when it tries to spark.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

With a brand new plug wire not touching anything except the plug being grounded where could it short to ground?

Could the distributor cap be bad?

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Tenere 700 / Africa Twin / Goldwing / Super Tenere / WR250R / GS1000S / GT750 / H2 / H1

At this point you have to assume anything could be bad starting with and including the distributor, going to the plug.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

4. One more piece of data. I just got done swapping the plug wires to the center and right cylinders where they attach to the distributor cap. The center wire now has spark and the right does not indicating the plug cap and wire is not the problem.

I guess this means either the distributer cap is bad,

or somehow the signal coil is only sending 2 pulses to the CDI. Is this possible and how could I check it?

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Tenere 700 / Africa Twin / Goldwing / Super Tenere / WR250R / GS1000S / GT750 / H2 / H1

Inspect the protrusion on the rotor to see if its gap to the SG is about the same as the other two, and that it's not mangled.

You could also put a spark plug on the wire from the coil output, grounded on something of course, and listen for even snapping sounds. It's pretty obvious if one out of three is missing.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

Thanks.

Guess what I am doing tomorrow. LOL

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Tenere 700 / Africa Twin / Goldwing / Super Tenere / WR250R / GS1000S / GT750 / H2 / H1

Early H1 distributor caps had a number of issues, carbon brush goes bad, wire terminals carbon up, wire retainer screws corrode, wire terminals can carbon track to the clutch cover, the cap materials degrade from ozone and atmosphere changing the plastic, heat degradation, and more. Same as a car distributor cap.