TOPIC:

Hello all, I am new to motorcycles and I have been struggling a little bit with my bike.
A few of the problems I am running into:
- The battery will not stay charged, even with the new battery i put in.
- Has a new starter solenoid and I took the starter apart and gave it a thorough cleaning but still will not start.
- I have cleaned a lot of the connectors going to the ignition coil, except the ones in the headlight assembly, and ignition coil is still reading 8 on my mulit meter.
-when it was starting I usually had to spray some starting fluid to get it going.
- changed the spark plugs already as well.

Is there any general advice or places I should be concentrating on that anyone could help me with?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Do you have a shop manual? Best tool in your box. I trust you have gas in the tank an tap turn to "ON". Are you getting gas to the carbs? Are the carbs clean? Properly tuned? Ignition timed properly?
You mentioned the battery not staying charged. Disconnect the positive wire at the battery. with the ignition switch in the "OFF" position, use a volt meter to see if there is current being drained off between the battery and the wire you just disconnected. You should get no reading. Check your wired for wear on the insulation . Ground wire for corrosion at both ends. Positive wire too. Keep us posted on your findings.

gas is getting to carbs. carbs are clean, It runs fine once I get it going. its been taking a jump to get it going. The ground wire and positive wire are corrosion free. Some of the wiring running to rectifier, solenoid, and up to ignition coil are questionable. I'll have to check the battery when I get home from work. Its on a trickle charger right now. Thanks. I'm wondering If i fried something from jumping it?

and it sounds like its really struggling to get started even with a fully charged battery.... any thoughts?

Have you cleaned the contacts in the right side handlebar switches? The "Off/Run/Off" and "Starter" switches? Solder connections, frayed wires. Make the questionable wires un questionable. Clean connections are your friend. Since your set up, do the left handlebar switches too for good horn and headlights and turn signals. Your alternator and battery will thank you.

So I just threw the battery back on and there is a current being drained between the disconnected positive cable and the positive terminal on the battery. did I test that correctly?
and im going to clean all terminals and connectors right now, as well as replace a few.
Thanks for the help so far.

got all the electrical cleaned up and put in some new connections. Still having to spray starting fluid to get her started.... Where would I go from here?

Sounds like you've got a partial short on the system. Hook your meter back up to check drain from the battery with the key in off position. Start unplugging electrical equipment one at a time until the dissipation dissapears and you've found where it's coming from, and can troubleshoot that item specifically. I would start with your ignition system first since it sounds like it may not be getting enough spark, do one coil pack at a time, then rectifier.

So I finally got a chance to go through the electrical system. Cleaned up all the connections, been testing everything and getting power all the way through except at the CDI box. There are three wires there. The green and Yellow is getting power but the other two are not. Any thoughts? I also have already tested the starter when I pulled it and cleaned it and it seemed to be fine. Im still having to spray starting fluid in it to even get it started. Thoughts on that? Thankyou for your help so far.

For reference, here's a direct link to the wiring diagram in KZr's FILEBASE.

Click here > www.kzrider.com/filebase/search/finish/1...d-ltd-wiring-diagram

Good Fortune!

Finally am back to working on the bike. Now all I get is a click from the solenoid. went through the electrical, cleaned up connectors, replaced bad wiring. Im stuck now.

also battery is fully charged but when i turn on the ignition key it drops from 12 -8....