TOPIC:

I read the whole thread to date.

Make sure you are using you meter in a manner that will give you useful information.

If you have a kink in a water hose, you can't find it by measuring pressure along the hose, unless the other end of the hose is open.

With electricity, you can't find the high resistance in the circuit unless the current is free to flow which means you need the circuit to be complete through whatever device(s) it's supposed to be powering (lamp, starter, ...)

Because you don't know if the devices are actually working without inspecting them. For example a lamp wth an open filament or a broken starter switch, you don't know that your circuit is complete so you won't find that corroded connector until you've done a lot of other work

I suggest that a 99 cent trouble light is a much better tool than a meter for most electrical work on the bike. With the trouble light you are completing the circuit at each point you test.
It's like opening up the hose to look for volume of water as opposed to measuring the pressure. Makes it a lot easier to find the kink.

Some examples...

If you use the trouble light the first thing you do is make sure you have some power. Put it across the battery terminals. It should be bright. When you move the clip to the engine case it should be just as bright as before. If not, you've got a 'kink' in your ground cicuit.
From here on out you can check the connection at the soleniod and the circuit through all the switches. It saves a lot of time if you 'divide' the circuit. Go to the end. If no power there, go to the middle. you've just discovered that you have a problem in half the circuit you were looking at before. Doesn't mean you might not have something wrong in the other half, but you'll never know until you fix the first half. Divide it again (you're working toward the battery). If it was good in the middle, then you know the problem is in that other half and you divide it by checking in the middle.

Have fun,

-Duck

I think the ignition switch has a plastic ring on the outside that you need to unscrew. You take it off and it comes out from the back. The plastic ring is black and knurled and is right outside the switch on the top of your idiot light cover.

Got the new ignition switch in the mail a few days ago and was going to install it today. I have a 1979 kz1000 ltd...so I ordered a 1979 kz1000 ltd compatible ignition switch. It wasn't until I recieved the part did I notice the connector differences. For some reason the switch on my Kz1000 has a large 6 pin male connector with a separate brown wire rather than the switch that they sent me which has one small 6 pin male connector. So perhaps the previous owner re-wired this bike using a different wiring harness? Any how here is the pic of the ignition switches. I've seen a comparable switch on z1enterprises with the same connections but the turn key housing is different. So I have come to the conclusion that the ignition switch that was on my bike is that exact same switch with the black housing stripped off it to make it compatible?



Post edited by: sakiguy, at: 2005/12/24 12:06

I rode my 80 550 to work regularly until I sold it a few weeks ago. I rode to work one day and went out to go meet someone for lunch, put the key in and turned it on and nothing. No lights, no starter, nothing. I used a meter to check battery voltage and had 12.8 volts. I pulled the headlight out and started checking voltage and only could get 6 volts anywhere. Started backtracking and found a one to two bullet connector coming off a wire that was connected to the positive battery cable, that when I pulled the connector apart, blue/white powder dropped out of it to the ground. I cleaned it up both inside and out and squeezed a little dielectric grease in there, plugged it back together and everything worked.

On a bike this old, you will probably find many connections that are corroded and need cleaning/replacing. I made it a routine to remove/replace and clean connectors as I came across them and used dielectric grease on every one of them. Just a thought, but I'll bet it's something this simple...

Just want to say thanks for everyone who responded and helped me out with this post. Well, it had nothing to do with the ignition switch. You guys were right on the money - a loose disconnected wire. I used a test bulb I got from Wal-Mart and tested the main 20 amp fuse. No power. I tugged on the white/red wire that is clamped to the positive battery terminal(which leads to the fuse box) and found that it was loose/not clamped to the positive batt. ring terminal. To test I simply wrapped it around the ring terminal temporarily with electrical tape and whala, everything powers up fine. Well, now I can finally get behind the gauges, check the bulbs, and change the oil.

Post edited by: sakiguy, at: 2005/12/28 22:29

Great! Sounds like the same wire, just disco'd in a slightly different place than mine. I keep a package of assorted connectors, soldering iron and solder, and dielectric grease handy...