GPZ500 No Spark!

Hi there

Any advice that can save me forking out lots of cash on an IgnitionMate
tool?

My problem:

Kawasaki GPZ500 D7 2001 has no spark at the plug on either cylinder.

Bike has: pulse generator in crankcase, Transistor/capacitor ignition
unit, junction box, two coils.

(The bike has been standing outside over the winter without a cover)

What I have done so far:

Plug grounded to engine casing, ignition on, starter motor turns but no
spark (a very weak spark was present at one point)

Coil connectors filed and WD40 sprayed on.

Other connectors sprayed with WD40.

Multimeter checks: Pulse generator resistance ok, coil primary &
secondary resistance ok, plug cap seemed ok (but a bike shop have said
it may be wrong resistance - to be confirmed), kill switch and starter
switch continuity check ok. Getting 12V to the coil.

Connected car battery (out of car) direct to coil and tried to get a
spark - no luck.

New battery and BikeTek charger bought, still no spark with new
battery.

Handed motorbike shop the coils, HT lead, and plugs. They managed to
get a spark ok.

My thoughts:

1. I may not be testing the coils correctly here so drew the wrong
conclusion that they were faulty.
2. Seems on wiring loom, ignition unit, pickup coil, junction box are
left.

I am now thinking that the only option is to get one of those
IgnitionMate tools to narrow the search down.

Or does anyone have a Kawasaki workshop manual? (I have been using
Haynes.)

Any hints gratefully accepted.

Cheers

MB

 

Clean the side stand switch. Or follow the cable from the sidestand
switch to where it plugs into the motorbike's wire harness, disconnect
the plug and jumper across the two pins.

I made a jumper wire to eliminate the sidestand switch problem on my
KLR.

 

Hi

Ignition is only impossible if the sidestand is down AND the bike is in
gear. I have the sidestand up, and the neutral light on, so do not
think it is this.

Nevertheless, I shall double check tomorrow.

Can anyone tell me how useful the IgnitionMate tool is - will it solve
all ignition problems?

Cheers for the advice.

 

(The bike has been standing outside over the winter without a cover)

If it was outside all winter, it could be alot of things....ignition
module for one, stator.... condensor.....maybe even the kill switch......

Good luck..

Fwed

 

A factory service manual and the ability to follow wiring diagrams is
more important than a fancy tool. A no-spark ignition problem is
really easy to troubleshoot, the circuit is very simple, and you already
have tested the coils and know they are producing spark.

If you have power to the coils, then the problem is in the thing that
interrupts power to the coils - which is the ignition module or pickup
unit or wiring. It was running when it was parked and you know that
water must have got into something, if the pickup coil has resistance
and you turn the engine over slowly, an analog voltmeter should be
enough to see if your getting some kind of indication out of the
pickup coil sensing the pickup. Substitute a known good ignition
module. I would bet the ignition module got water in it somehow.

Ted

 

I would bet the ignition module got water in it somehow.

I doubt if it is water. The ignition unit is pretty well
sealed, and completely filled with some transparent
rubber-like plastic.

Happened to me about 10 years ago on my (then) Kaw LTD454.
If memory serves me, the unit was a NEC (Nippon Electronic
Company) brand.

One of the transistors in the ignition unit died. The $tealer
placed a new unit on the counter, and said: "That'll be 1180
Guilders", (about 600 US$).
I said: "Not in an 1180 years" and the $tealer grinned at me,
knowing that an LTD will sit still without a working unit.
That moment he lost a customer.

Took me a week to saw the thing open, scoop out the
plastic and replace the transistor with one that drives
a television end stage. Price of that transistor: 2 Guilders
(one dollar). So I bought five of them.
Scooping out was a tough and long job, with a soldering
iron and a scalpel.

Transistor type: Philips BU806 (I still have four at
home). Note that I also had to change some resistors
because the base current for that BU806 was different
from the original one.
A D1071 can be used in stead of the BU806 as well.

Guess why the wiring diagram did not show the innards of
that unit, but showed it as an empty block with a connector
to it only. And take a guess why the original transistor was
unmarked. I no longer have faith in NEC as well....


If your ignition unit is the culprit, then I'm afraid my BUs won't
help, because you have no spark at BOTH cilinders,
and it is unlikely that two transisters reach end_of_life at the
same moment.

Inside there also is a chip that changes ignition timing
according to revs, by measuring how fast the pick up spools
are firing, and then triggers the relevant transistor via a small
driver stage. The BUs I'm talking about are each straight forward
connected to the primary winding of the relevant ignition coil, and
thus behave as the good old contact points. (Lot of Amps,
when conducting, and a lot of reverse Volts when shutting
off the current).
That chip ofcourse also is unmarked, and you won't
be able to buy a new chip.

I still must have the scribbles and calculations I made those
days. If you want to see it, let me know at my email address,
schreuder# (without the hash).

I'll will then send you a jpeg of them (if I can find them).

For your sake and wallet, I hope it is the side stand switch.

Rob.

 

Hi

Thanks for the suggestions/opinions.

Having retested the coils 'in situ', I am getting a spark - but it is
weak. So, I assume this means that all the circuit components are ok.
But why is the spark weak? Could there be some sort of earth fault
dragging current away from the coils?

FB :- I checked the sidestand switch, got open circuit/closed circuit
when raising/lowering the sidestand. (Although the wire colours in my
Haynes manual 2052 for teh EX500 D UK model differ to that on the
bike.) So happy with the side stand.

Ted :- Yep, ordered a factory manual for the bike from Bournemouth
kawasaki. Only 27 quid plus posting. So waiting on that. I collected
the coils today from the shop, and have spent 15 quid on a length of
fresh HT lead and NGK plug caps. (They simply screw on.) I did it after
hooking the coils back on the bike and just getting a weak spark (ie.
hairline thickness, watery blue). Nevertheless, all this means the
pulse generator is giving the signal to the IC igniter unit.

oldgeezer :- damn right it best not be the igniter unit - all this is
justice for me being too lazy to cover the bike up....

My plan now:

1. Recharge battery.
2. Hook coils / new HT lead etc up and see if there is a better spark
against engine case.
3. Drain carb float bowls.
4. Fresh fuel in.
5. Put plugs into bike and try full starting.

Basically I am hoping that the spark is weak because the HT leads and
plugs are old - the HT leads were not very flexible, and I have been
pulling the plugs out alot a while back as I had the top end off.

Cheers, will keep you updated if I find any other stuff out.

 

Not likely.
Weak spark normally comes because the current through
the primary of the ignition coil is not switched off fast enough.
In the old days (contact points) this was caused by a defective
condenser. HT is created the moment the current goes off.
Or.. the current through the primary coil was not strong enough
in the first place.

Because you have both sides sparking weak, there must
be a common problem.
Common points I can think of are:
1) battery not capable pooring out enough current.
2) ground problem (not enough ground) Did you clean and
WD40 that connector on the ignition unit?
3) that single chip in the ignition unit

I suggest the following test:
a) get one plug out, strap it to the frame or engine so that you
can see the spark (you already know how to do that)
b) take a good look at wiring (need a wiring diagram for that)
of the connector on that ignition unit and find out
which pin connects to the coil that feeds the now loose
spark plug.
c) Take a piece of electric wire, hook one end to the battery
positive post
d) pull off the connector
e) scrape the other end of that electric wire to the pin in question
of the connector.

You are mimicking a contact point by doing this, and although
you should not expect a fully powered spark because you
have no condensor, it should be better than what you get now.

1) Still weak? Retry with another battery. If now better, it
is the battery.
2) Better? Then the connector is not clean enough, or
the unit is defect.

Rob.

 

That's my guess as well, motorcycle batteries don't take kindly to
not being used for more than a month or so in my experience. If
your going to store a bike over the winter you need to put the battery
on a trickle charger.

A battery can read 12v on a static volt ohm test and then tank
it's voltage when put under load, and the IC's and such in the
ignitors need enough voltage or they won't switch properly.

Ted

 

Success - I think.

I have started the bike by doing the following things:

1. Grounded the plugs on the engine block. I just saw a weak spark on
No. 2 cylinder, and nothing on No. 1. So I do not think that I was
getting a good enough contact holding plug with pliers on the block.

2. I decided to just put the sparkies into the engine, and put fresh
fuel into the carbs. (I used an old lawnmower fuel tank to hold the
petrol and connected to the fuel line straight into the carbs - means I
do not need the hefty tank on the bike.)

3. Hooked my 12V car battery in parallel to the bike battery -
connected red lead to bike +; other end of red lead to car +; - lead to
car battery -; then the other - end to a grounding point on the bike
chassis. (The car battery was out of the car by the way!)

4. Choke on, clutch in, starter pressed. A few turns and she fired up.

5. Cut the ignition, and tried again but would not start. I think that
I drained the batteries too much so they are back on charge ready for
the next try. Either way I have proved the whole circuit works, so
feeling chuffed.

Conclusions:

1. Make sure you test each component properly. Not grounding the plugs
properly may have been the reason I did not see sparks....

2. No problem with the corrosion - it was a Red Herring I think. The
real problem was the HT leads and plugs were worn out and had been
'wiggled' too much. (The HT lead is only screwed into the coil and plug
caps and relies on biting into the lead insulator and gripping.)

3. The other problem may be the battery was not giving enough current.
This is to be verified once I manage to fire the bike up again without
the car battery jumping it.

4. Old petrol in the carb float bowls would not have helped too.

On the whole I think I was looking for more complicated faults than
were actually there. I am glad I did not take the 'knee jerk' reaction
and buy the IgnitionMate etc. Ted was quite right - a manual and
multimeter were much better than any fancy tool.

I feel confident the bike will start up once a freshly charged battery
is in it.

Cheers for the ideas and help.

 

MonkeyBoy wrote:

<snip>
This parallel setup can ruin your car battery.
If you have your car battery out of the car, then
better disconnect the bike battery from ground first,
so that it is not parallel to the car battery.
In the parallel situation, if the bike battery it is 'empty' and so old
that it cannot hold much charge, it will drain your car battery fast.
Your car battery will output many amps to your bike battery trying
to charge it.
You could end up with warped plates in the car battery because
of the high current it then puts out.

When people do this parallel setup with cars, which is the
normal way it is done, then the guy with the good car always
starts his engine first and runs it a high revs, so that his generator
helps his own battery.

If you drained batteries that fast, then the bikes battery is at the
end of life.
Check how fast the bike battery starts bubbling when you have it
on the charger. If it bubbles within a few minutes, it cannot hold
charge and you have to buy a new one.
Reading the voltage does not tell how much charge (Ah) it can
hold. If you really want to check the battery before buying a new
one, charge it, then hook up a bulb (say 55 Watt head light).
If your battery is rated 12Ah, the bulb should light at least
two hours.
Rough calculation:
Bulb 55W (say 60, divides easier) at 12 Volt,
so it draws approx 5 Amps. If it lights for 2 hours,
then it has consumed 10 Ah, which is within what the
battery should be able to provide.

Rob.

 

No, that's not true at all. If you jumper your car battery to the
motorcyle battery and the car engine isn't running, the car battery
voltage will be somewhere between 11.9 volts (dead battery) and 12.8
volts (fully charged *resting* battery).

So, a "dead" motorcycle battery will only get about 0.9 volts from a
fully charged resting car battery and the charge rate (if any charge
takes place) will be at a very low rate.

When charging a dead motorcycle battery from a variable voltage
charger, you want to crank the voltage up to about 20 to 25 volts to
see if *anything* happens. If you see a charge on the ammeter, reduce
the voltage to about 15 or 16 volts to get the
*slow charge* rate on the sticker on top of the battery.

Plate warping and lead shedding occur with a battery is charged at too
high a rate. That would never happen to a resting car battery while
hooked across a dead motorcycle battery.

The reason for running the car's engine is to use the excess voltage to
charge the
battery in the *assisted vehicle*, as a fully charged resting battery
would take about 24 hours to equalize its charge with the dead battery
*if anything happened at all.

Really dead batteries need to be *shocked* into life with higher
voltage than you imagine. Refer to what I said about variable voltage
charging.

The only reason I can imagine for a battery to begin bubbling
immediately would be if there were shorted plates.

There is a lot of misinformation about what can happen if you jump
start a motorcycle using a car battery and nobody else seems to realize
what will happen except me.

I will say this over and over and over.

The danger is to the motorcycle's alternator and the rectifier diodes.
Since motorcycles do not have a generator switch like an airplane, the
alternator is connected to the battery through the rectifier regulator
at all times.

If you jump start the motorcycle with a car battery that is, say,
half-charged, the motorcycle alternator will then try to charge the car
battery *and* the dead motorcycle battery.

This could lead to a damged alternator stator or blown diodes.

So, the absolute best way to solve the dead motorcycle battery problem
is to charge the motorcycle battery, do the capacity test you described
with a headlight across the battery terminals, and, if the battery
fails that test, replace the battery with a fully charged new battery
and go from there.

 

A car starter pulls many hundreds of amps from a car battery during
starting and that does not warp car battery plates. If a motorcycle
battery pulled this much power off a car battery it would explode
because it could not dissapate the heat fast enough.

You cannot "shock" a "really dead" battery into life. If a wet cell battery
is
really dead - which is defined as it won't take a charge anymore and
will not provide power - the plates have sulphated and are ruined.

There are some hairbrained schemes around to supposedly "unsulphate"
lead acid battery plates. Most of these are -highly- dangerous if they
involve any sort of fast-charging of the battery and you would certainly
remove the battery from the motorcycle and set it OUTSIDE on a
concrete slab, with protection erected around it, in case it exploded.
A battery is cheap compared to trying to clean up a motorcycle that has
been showered with battery acid. And even if it works, what you end up
with is a motorcycle battery that has lost -significant- capacity, it may
be alive enough to start the engine if the engine starts easily on the
first couple revolutions, but if it gets cold or hot it will probably go
dead.

If a battery is fully charged and it starts bubbling it's being overcharged,
which happens if the voltage regulator is screwed up.

I've heard this one before.

The most I've seen a half-charged car battery draw from a battery charger
with an ammeter on it is about 20amps. The motorcycle headlight and all
lights on the bike probably draw this amount. And I think such a scenario
is speculative anyway, how many people are going to have a half-charged
car battery in a car?

Much more dangerous is that most motorcycles do not have handy charging
posts and I've seen people pull all kinds of stunts with screwdrivers and
such to try to charge a motorcycle battery off jumper cables. If you short
across the battery terminals even for a second, you will almost certainly
blow
diodes.

Frankly if the battery has been let set for 6 months without a trickle
charger
it's sulphated, and has lost significant capacity, just replace the damn
thing.

Ted

 

<snip>
Correct. Unless the bike batt is totally shorted (which is
very unlikely). To be sure: unhook the bike batt first.
Remember: MonkeyBoy tried to find out why sparks were weak.
Hooking up a fresh battery could tell: bike battery is
not good (either empty/shorted/sulphated, which would
be the next step to determine), or --if sparks still were weak--
problem is somewhere else.

Correct. This is the case when the bike batt is sulphated.
Remember that a bike battery has an internal resistance
that is about 6 times the internal resistance of a car batt
and when it is sulphated it is even higher than that, so
many amps will dissipate much energy inside that
bike battery.
To be sure: unhook the bike battery first.
True if bike battery has not enough charge but is internally okay.
I stand corrected here, warping is unlikely.
I made the wrong assumption.

Correct. Not worth to try it. I hate to think about acid splatting
all over the area, or over myself.

Yes, and it will be overcharged soon when it is sulphated or has
shorted plates..
This is plain experience. I never gave this much thought. Begin
with a battery that reads 12.1 Volts, Hook it up to a charger. Soon
bubbling to me means 'battery defect, go buy a new one'.

Unlike FB I do not know everything. I've been maintaining bikes
for over 40 years now, before that helped my father in his
bike repair shop and I am still learning.
I cannot remember any generator switch in the F104G, but it was
1968 when I started such a crate on the run-up for the last time,
but FB is correct, the generator of the bike is connected at all
times..See? I am still learning. Never thought about this possibility. But I
also never jump started a bike too. Never needed to, because it
was always obvious that the battery was defect.

Which is exactly what MonkeyBoy should do.

Some weeks ago I helped on my neighbors daughter's moped.
It had been left alone during winter. Battery sulphated.
Because it was monday and all motorbike shops closed,
from the telephone diary I picked an address that sells
'motor electronics'. They came up with the same Yuasa I have
in my bike. I normally pay around 50 Euros for them.
The motor-electronics shop charged 35 Euros.
So MonkeyBoy should shop around.

Rob.

 

That's absurd. As I said, a fully charged battery will have a *resting*
voltage of 12.8 volts. A fully discharged motorcycle battery would have
a *resting* voltage of 11.9 volts. We know that 1 volt will push 1 amp
through 1 ohm of resistance.

So, if you connect a fully charged lead acid battery across a dead lead
acid battery, the most voltage differential you would have would be 0.9
volts. If the internal resistance of the battery was only 1 ohm, the
current through the motorcycle battery would be 0.9 X 1.0 = 0.9
amperes.

The current dissipation would be 0.9 squared = 0.81 watts. That isn't
much power at all. It doesn't matter how huge the source battery is, if
it doesn't have a much higher voltage than the dead battery, there
isn't going to be any large current flow unless the dead battery has
internal shorts between the plates.

Of course you can shock a dead battery back into life. Did you think I
pulled that statement out of my ass? Using 20 to 25 volts on a dead
battery is in motorcycle maintenance manuals! It tells the mechanic
whether he's wasting his valuable time in a matter of minutes. The
battery doesn't begin to charge, so it's time to sell the customer a
new battery and get back to working on the other machines waiting for
attention.

I found a chemical once that claimed to unsulfate the plates. I can't
imagine what kind of chemical would do anything whatever to stable lead
sulfate. I drained the battery, installed the fluid, drained that out,
and refilled and recharged the battery to no avail.

About half of them?

I am very familiar with the circuitry in a 3 phase wye-wound alternator
with a three phase full wave rectifier bridge . I see no reason for any
current whatever to flow through the bridge when you short across the
battery terminals.

So your assertion must be an urban myth promoted by the ignorant.

 

No, what you are saying is incorrect. While it is true that a fully
charged battery will have ~ 12.8 volts, a battery with 11.9 volts will
most likely still start and run pretty much any engine just fine and is
not by any stretch of the imagination "fully discharged". Most of the
time you don't even notice that a battery is flat until it gets down in
the 10 - 10.5 volt range. But these are still only "partially"
discharged batteries.

A "fully" discharged battery would have zero volts. If it is truly
fully discharged, it has nothing left. Also, a battery that has some
serious internal fault could have both zero volts *and* very low
internal resistance (example: plates internally shorted).

So, using the same ohms law formula you quote below, take a 12 volt
differential and place that across that low resistance. There will be
some serious current.

But it still will not bother the car battery all that much. The current
demand from a car battery when the low resistance of the starter motor
is placed across it (like what happens every time you start a car) is
pretty darn high too.

Not if they drive them. If it's only half charged it will have only
6.5v and that will certainly not be enough to run the car. But of
course you were answering based on your (faulty) definition of a fully
discharged battery having 11.9 volts.

Me either, unless the alternator is putting out current through the
bridge (which means the engine has to be running). But then why would
you be jumping it? Perhaps this "urban legend" has more to do with
shorting the terminals of the donor vehicle than the recipient?

By the way, I see no problem with using a car battery to jump start a
motorcycle either. I just take exception to some of your arguments.

 

Yausa's battery tech manual claims that a lead-acid battery is fully
discharged when sitting at 11.8 or 12.0v, depending on chemistry. They
might be talking about "practically" discharged while you are talking
about "really" discharged. Or maybe they actually know what they are
talking about. I suggest asking the folks over at
sci.chem.electrochem.battery about your ideas and reporting back here
with the replies.

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

HEY!

Pay attention, Fred. I worked in an Air Force BATTERY SHOP for pay. Not
much money, but it was a paying job, so I'm not talking out my ass
about batteries.

We had HUNDREDS of lead acid batteries in the shop on charge at all
times. We rebuilt lead acid batteries by taking them apart and
replacing the separators and soldering the bus bars back together and
refilling them with electrolyte and charging them.

I used to walk around all day, cranking up rheostats on the individual
charger stations that were fed by huge copper bus bars above them. I
had a container with electrolyte in one side and distilled water in the
other. I would add acid to the batteries that were done charging but
were low on electrolyte. I would add water to the batteries that were
still charging but didn't have the proper specific gravity.

I worked on some of the first nickel cadmium batteries that were ever
used in airplanes. I worked on remotely activated batteries that were
filled by the flip of a switch just before launching an
intercontinental ballistic missile. I installed
batteries in the Apollo capsule.

So I know what I'm talking about when it comes to batteries and
charging systems.

As to your assertion that "there will be some serious current" when you
apply 12 volts across a zero volt dead battery, that's ridiculous.

The electrochemistry in a battery is reversible. As the battery
discharges, the sulfur combines with the lead of the plates and the
electrolyte becomes weaker because it contains a higher percentage of
water!

Water has a much higher resistance than 50/50 electrolyte, so, when you
apply 12 volts across an essentially dead battery, you get very little
current flow, if any at all, because you're initially trying to charge
through WATER.

You NEED the 20 to 25 volts to overcome the high resistance of the
water of a really doubtful battery and begin to pull the sulfur back
off the plates into the electrolyte.

Besides working in the battery shop, I also worked on my Uncle Sam's
weapons of mass destruction. You may have seen videos of various rocket
planes and lifting bodies and satellite launch vehicles dropping off
the wing of a B-52 bomber.

I worked on that airplane. It's over 50 years old and still flying. But
the point is that an aircraft electrical system has a three position
starter switch. It has "start", "run" and "generator".

The "start" function turns on the ignition system and cranks the
turbine. The "run" position turns off the starter and ignition, since
neither is necessary when the turbine is running.

The "generator" position connects each generator to the AC bus, as each
engine is started.There's a synchronizing circuit that won't allow an
alternator to be connected to the bus unless it's at the right
frequency and in phase with the other alternators. (1)

A motorcycle ignition switch no function relating to the alternator,
and since motorcycles have no headlight switch anymore either, the
alternator is connected to the rectifier ALL the time, and the
rectifier is connected to the battery ALL the time.

If you jump start a motorcycle with a half-charged car battery, the
motorcycle alternator will try to charge that car battery, and you
could overheat the alternator and blow out a diode in the rectifier if
you started the motorcycle engine and revved it up while the jumper
cables were connected.

(1) I also worked at Hoover Dam, in the powerhouse, where we avoided
having to synchronize generators to the grid any more often than
absolutely necessary.

We kept them "motoring on the line" by running them unloaded with no
water flowing through the drive turbines.

 

OK, I bow to your superior experience and expertise as related to lead
acid batteries. I'm just a motorcycle enthusiast and an EE who plays
auto/bike mechanic at home. ;-)

So you are saying the changes in chemistry of the electrolyte will
increase the charging resistance once the batteries voltage is below
what? 12v? At approximately what discharge level will the increased
resistance overcome the increased difference in potential to cause an
actual reduction in charge current, assuming a constant charge voltage
(not a current regulated charger).

The reason that I ask is I have definitely seen some car batteries in a
poor state of charge well below 11.5 volts. They were still able to
start and run the car and they drew lots of charging current (pegged the
charger ammeter needle)

Also, here's a question related to the last scenario. We are trying to
jump start a motorcycle with a flat battery. We are purportedly going
to use a car battery to do that. One would think that the load on the
alternator would be more effected by the partially discharged motorcycle
battery than the fully charged car battery, no? Am I missing something
here.

 

That one's going to need some 'splaining. Last time I checked, DC had a
frequency of zero.