Spark at Points, not at Plugs

I'm having some issues with a project bike I picked up. It's been pretty thoroughly lobotomized - it was chopped for an "evil gang" look for a small indie movie made near where I live - and it's got no key, kick only, and a switch under the seat for the blinkers.

I can't get it to start but I'm getting sparks at the points when I turn it over by hand, but no sparks at the plugs. I've adjusted the cam chain tension, set the valve gaps, set the timing and the gaps for the points... but there's something not right. Battery's got a juicy 13V, coils measure good, don't have the gear to test the condenser, plugs look great.

From what I can tell from Pahl's book, the Clymer book, and forum posts, the wiring for the ignition should have a path like this:



Any suggestions on what I'm missing?

UncleBuck said:

but I'm getting sparks at the points when I turn it over by hand, but no sparks at the plugs.

Click to expand...

That's usually the condenser.

Condensers are my first guess, a big spark at the points also points to bad condenser. check grounds, coils, frame, engine all need good grounds, engine mounts are NOT enough to work as grounds.

Are you sure the spark isn't going to ground through leaky plug wires or fouled plugs? Unplug the points wire and touch it to ground,with the power on, it should make sparks if the coils are good.

Well, finally got some garage time again, and worked through the suggestions based on parts I had on hand.

Unplugging the points wire from the coils and tapping it against the cooling fins got some lovely nice sparks.

I ran a ground wire directly from the body of the condenser to the negative terminal of the battery.

In my sketch in the OP, I am correct that +12DC goes into the orange wire, and the brown wire goes to the points?

No, just the opposite on a stock coil. The brown gets the 12v power and the orange runs to condenser and points.

Hey,

I have a 1979 XS650 that was sitting for a long time. I refreshed a lot of things and in the process I switched the points to an XS-Charge electric ignition and the coil pack with a suggested 2.3 ohm resistor. I am getting a 12.33 volts from the kill switch wire all the way through to the coil pack, but when I try to crank it over, there are no sparks and a less then 1 volt reading on the wires connect to the spark plugs. What do you all think might be the issue? The black and orange wires on the bolt of the coil were just for extra grounding to see if that would make a difference.