Strange electrical problem

[mattofferdahl9]

Hey guys first time poster!
I have a 1980 xs650G I bought that had a bad cylinder. I removed the engine, replaced the bad piston and then painted the engine, and reinstalled it. Now I have no spark. I had spark prior to taking the bike apart. I really didn't tamper with the wiring other than disconnecting what was necessary in order to remove the engine. What I've tested so far..

I have power at the red wire on the ignition harness.

I have power at the coil

I have power at the tci

I thought maybe the paint was making for poor grounds, so I removed some of the mounting bolts and used a round file on the inside of the mounts, and removed the paint from the outside edges. I also used new brp7eix plugs and cut the wires back a hair and reinstalled them. I still am without spark. I even ground the plug to the negative on the battery and had nothing.. My headlight doesn't work and my brake/oil light is on when the key is on, if that's normal? I unplugged my rear blinkers since I don't intend to run them, and I don't know if that has something to do with it? Also I may have had the wires backwards on the starter solenoid.

Any advice on where to go next? Also does the key only have one two settings, on and off? Thanks!

 

[xjwmx]

I think if you unplug the rear the front will just come on steady. So the easy thing to do would be jumper them to sort of simulate a bulb's presence. But having them unplugged wouldn't keep you from getting spark if your wiring's stock. The headligt won't come on until the bike starts.

Did you plug the TCI rotor pickup back in?

Ah - there are 4 stock key pos. Run, off, off + lock, off + lock + tail light turned on.

 

[hmusket]

You mentioned the brake/oil light came on, how about the neutral light? Does the starter work? You mentioned maybe having the wiring wrong on the solenoid.

 

[mattofferdahl9]

I read a post about tricking the lighting delay and the headlight does come on when I run a jumper wire from the positive on the battery to the blue/yellow wire on the light delay box (gray box behind battery), so that problem is sorted out. The TCI pickup is plugged in, everything is plugged in. My key only has two positions, off and on.. The neutral light is on, the starter works good. The TCI, and coil have power. It's strange because it had spark when I took it apart, so I must have done something. The motor did tip over quite violently when I had it out, and I did get some cleaners on the stator (which I took apart and cleaned.

Another thing, I'm running iridium plugs, but when I got the bike it had one standard bpr7es and a bp7es. The bp7es was brand new and had zero spark? But the bpr7es worked on both sides.. I'm so confused. I took the rectifier off the frame at one point but didn't mess with it, and I tried to pull the battery box with zero luck since the TCI screws are stripped. Other than that I just plugged everything back together and it doesn't spark. I'm wondering if when I had the solenoid wires in the wrong location (if there's such a thing) did I fry something?

 

[mattofferdahl9]

http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7513

This was a great post I found diagnosing electrical problems, when I tested my coil I came up with 1.9 ohms, which says it calls for 2.5 +/- 10%, and when I went cap to cap is was like 33.5k, which is far off 23k...coil just might of decided to crap when I put my bike together because it wasn't ground or the plugs weren't grounded well?

Also it says 700 ohms between the pickups, and I have 380...

It's either I damaged my wiring harness or when I was repeatedly trying to get this thing running before I found out it had a bad cylinder I blew out the TCI and coil?

My stator windings are also touching the outside of the case.