1985 VF500F Ignition problems.

Hey everybody, I just bought my Interceptor two weeks ago and three hours after owning the bike it died. The bike tries to turn over when I hit the starter so at first I thought it was a problem with the ignition coils. I bought coils on ebay and new spark plugs however, still no spark. The resistance between the tabs that come out of the coils I had and the coils I just bought are all 3.5 ohms about. Whenever I try to touch the multimeter between the spark plug lead receptacle and a mounting bolt, my multimeter says there is an open circuit which really puzzles me. Is this correct or did I just buy dead coils? I then tested the pulse generator and it read 350 ohms between both of the two farthest pins which I understand to be correct. Does somebody know what might be going on?

 

Your coils sound fine. The number one rule of ignition problems: if you think it's the coil then it's NOT the coil. Everyone jumps to the same conclusion and replaces the coil first, so don't beat yourself up over that.

I'd check your pulse generators first. I'd normally suggest the spark boxes as a possible culprit, but they would only drop out one bank of cylinders so I doubt one of them is bad. As a last resort you should also make sure that your kill switch and ignition switch are working properly.

 

I checked my pulse generators and between cylinders 1-3 and 2-4 I have about 360 ohms of resistance which I think is correct. Funny thing you mentioned the kill switch because I've only had this bike for a very short period of time so I don't know if it's always done this, but regardless of whether the switch is on or off, the starter will turn the motor. I'm not sure if that would cause my problem though or even why it does that. The ignition switch works fine, the only problem with the bike I observed before it died on me was it had a hard time hot starting.

 

Ugh...

Alright. I finally found the problem. Bad connection. I feel like such an idiot. I've been worrying about this all week and all I had to do was take out a brillo pad.

 

You are correct, the starter is allowed to engage when the kill switch is off. It's a pretty handy feature actually.

I'm glad to hear that you got it sorted out.

 

Can you elaborate a little please?

Hi. I am having the same exact problem as you did:frown:. Can you tell me which connection was bad? It woujld be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.



Treasa