1975 XL350 K1 No Spark!

Anonymous (not verified)
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0
Joined
5/10/2021
Hey all, I have acquired a 1975 XL350 K1 that appears to be in decent shape, but I can't get a spark for the life of me. I have tried to follow a few other threads here and on other websites, but now I seem to be stuck and need help from someone who has a lot of experience with these machines.

To start I disconnected the engine killswitch and the ignition is straight up missing, so I considered that disconnected as well.

I had a test light in at the alternator's black and white wire and that connection is good when I kick the bike over. I then moved the test light to the joint connection of the alternator and the points. The test light also lights up there when I kick over the bike.[color=#333333]https://appsync.biz/solitaire/[/color] [color=#333333]9apps.ooo/[/color] [color=#333333]https://bluestacks.vip/[/color]


So at that point I figured I could get the bike going. I connected the ignition coil to the joint connection of the alternator and the points as I did above and tested there with the test light. Still good. So I moved my test light to the small metal contact between the condensor and the ingition coil. Still had light there. However, when I went to test the secondary coil (spark plug end) in the spark plug cap, my test light showed absolutely nothing after many kicks. I replaced my test light with the spark plug and placed the spark plug on the cylinder head as described in the manual. No spark when I kicked the bike over.

So I figured that the coil must be bad or something of that nature. I tested the resistance of the coil and I had ~16,000 Ohms between the secondary coil and the ground and ~2-3 Ohms between the condensor lead and the ground. This is very confusing because everything I have read tells me that the ignition coil is good based off of those numbers! I went and bought another coil off of ebay figuring that I just got unlucky with a bad coil. The "new" coil was not different at all - still no spark out of the ignition coil even though the circuit was good at the end of the condensor! ​

Does anyone have thoughts as to what I could try next? I haven't reset the points gap or timing as I assumed that was just for actual engine performance and timing once you had a spark. Was I wrong in assuming that?
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WEAL
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11/6/2018
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DE
2/27/2019 11:33pm
Check the points - if corroded you will not have contact to earth/mass when the points are closed. Thus you cannot load the coil and generate a spark.
barnett468
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7/19/2018
Location
Wildomar, CA US
2/28/2019 10:32am
Anonymous wrote:
Hey all, I have acquired a 1975 XL350 K1 that appears to be in decent shape, but I can't get a spark for the life of...
Hey all, I have acquired a 1975 XL350 K1 that appears to be in decent shape, but I can't get a spark for the life of me. I have tried to follow a few other threads here and on other websites, but now I seem to be stuck and need help from someone who has a lot of experience with these machines.

To start I disconnected the engine killswitch and the ignition is straight up missing, so I considered that disconnected as well.

I had a test light in at the alternator's black and white wire and that connection is good when I kick the bike over. I then moved the test light to the joint connection of the alternator and the points. The test light also lights up there when I kick over the bike.[color=#333333]https://appsync.biz/solitaire/[/color] [color=#333333]9apps.ooo/[/color] [color=#333333]https://bluestacks.vip/[/color]


So at that point I figured I could get the bike going. I connected the ignition coil to the joint connection of the alternator and the points as I did above and tested there with the test light. Still good. So I moved my test light to the small metal contact between the condensor and the ingition coil. Still had light there. However, when I went to test the secondary coil (spark plug end) in the spark plug cap, my test light showed absolutely nothing after many kicks. I replaced my test light with the spark plug and placed the spark plug on the cylinder head as described in the manual. No spark when I kicked the bike over.

So I figured that the coil must be bad or something of that nature. I tested the resistance of the coil and I had ~16,000 Ohms between the secondary coil and the ground and ~2-3 Ohms between the condensor lead and the ground. This is very confusing because everything I have read tells me that the ignition coil is good based off of those numbers! I went and bought another coil off of ebay figuring that I just got unlucky with a bad coil. The "new" coil was not different at all - still no spark out of the ignition coil even though the circuit was good at the end of the condensor! ​

Does anyone have thoughts as to what I could try next? I haven't reset the points gap or timing as I assumed that was just for actual engine performance and timing once you had a spark. Was I wrong in assuming that?
" the ignition is straight up missing, so I considered that disconnected as well."

It won't run if the ignition is missing and you can't disconnect what is not there.

Does it have a good battery?

You need to start by seeing if the stator is good which can be tested with a volt meter that has a peak volt mode. This will log whatever the highest voltage it reads from the stator.
Anaxdlere
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2/25/2015
Location
Saint Louis, MO US
2/28/2019 12:29pm
Was it determined this account is a bot? Quite a few posts from it and all have some sketch balls hyperlinks in them.

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