I was occasionally dropping a cylinder on my 1975 Honda CB750. I put some Dyna coils and a Dyna S electronic ignition on it and it's run like a champ ever since.
Yea, truth is, it’s been decades since I worked with points ignition systems. I don’t recall messing with them on my ‘79 KZ650, but the ‘83 Seca 900 and everything since has had electronic ignition. Usually I’m diagnosing a problem with those. It was a crash refresher. Cheers.
Many thanks for the video mister, nice video and audio quality, wish you well with your health issues and keep going with the motorcycle work, my regards from Europe Greece ...
Hey Tom, really nice diagnostic process. The 73 had a funky advance plate. Change it to a newer one from a 74/75. There was a bulletin back in the day.
Ace vid, those old coils look like zzr600/1100 coils , I don't think they're compatible ( ohms and ballast resistor issues ) with points ignition, I was about to put some on my '76 kz900 (still on points) but refrained, maybe it negatively effected the condensers on yours, or vice versa and your plugs were behaving very oddly. I've used zzr coils on previous Kawasaki's and Suzuki's but only with CDI ignition, it's a way of getting a screw in HTlead and the low tension wires disconnected easily instead of the moulded in earlier coils. Your compression figures from incorrect valve clearances was eye watering and eye opening, got a 79 gs1000 engine here showing the same symptoms and suspicions, thanks for sharing. Just a suggestion but every start up and running check I do, I try and get in the habit of doing a finger licking temp touch tests on the header pipes always looking for the cold.one..keeps me focused on the iffy cylinder/s. Try a touch test if you can on your ign coils ( warm up,.turn off first ) too as they can over heat when faulty or when other ign issues are happening like failing black boxes. They should be the same temp. Probs with cyl 1 and 4 together and /or cyl 2 and 3 together will always be ignition related. Jumped out my chair when you said that 9.2v drop, because earlier Kawasaki CDI boxes also need +9.2 v to function.. below this the spark at the plug vanishes..shows up as sudden, random cutting out ( intermittent running ) Get well soon, that sewing machine whirrr was whistling.. it's the musical holy grail of the jap 4 we quest for..great job ,carb work, diagnosis and content
See, that's why I like even the old-school electronic component pickup. Hall Effect or otherwise (I don't know how those worked) but all you have to do is simply match or come close to the stock resistance reading of the original coil primary winding and virtually anything will work. Even stick coils if you can find the ones with the proper resistance, or in a wasted spark situation, aggregate of two coils in series if that equals the resistance of a primary coil, even those sticks will work (if they physically fit). No ballast, no nuttin... cheers.
Nice Job very thorough and u got that ol Z1 ticking surprised it’s been bored as it looks like low mileage may have been a storage issue and rusty bores
If it looked like I was fumbling with the points, that's because I was. Haven't worked on points to any great extent since the early 1980's and before that. I am so used to diagnostics on the old school electronic pickup ignition/coils, whipping out my Fluke and testing values of pickups, coil primary/secondary, points kind-of had me scratching my head like, "how do these work again"? lol...
This is only a suggestion: Cook all meat in water for hours add vegetables and roots. The fat will needed nutrients. Stop all pork. Unless slow cooked. Cured meats and aged cheese. Dry not wet. Look up mushrooms. Lions main, morels, Chantelle, oister, chicken of the woods. Stop all fast food and restaurants. Eat only garden raised vegetables and roots. Herbs and flowers. No pesticides or hurbasides. Fresh air hart pumping and heavy breathing. Clean water. Do not drink liquid while eating. You stomach acid wi become diluted. Rating and fermentation will occur. Use sticky rice to clean and strengthen your intestinal track. Fish is good with sticky rice. Natural fermentation veggies and roots. Steam vs fry. Find a good tea.
i have a 78 kz1000, not getting spark on 2/3 and intermittent cylinder drop out. It currently has a dyna s ignition system but i suspect the right(front) pickup is no good. with the bike on 1,2,4 get hot on the exhaust but cylinder 3 pipe is just warm. ive taken apart the ignition switch, kill switch and thoroughly cleaned all contacts in the harness. bike runs starts up right away but is running on 2 cylinders 80% of the time. Any ideas ? it has a new battery, new coil which i thought was the problem initially.
First thing I’d do is meter the resistance on both pickup coils and compare. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but Dyna would tell you if you call them. Regardless, if the resistance on 1-4 pickup is basically the same as 2-3, it’s likely not the pickup. I’d then do a voltage drop test at the yellow/red wire which powers both coils and make sure there isn’t low voltage. If that’s ok, I’d swap the plugs out of 2-3 and move them to 1-4. If the problem doesn’t move and everything else is good, I’d try powering the coils directly with a jumper from the battery and see if that solves the issue, just to make sure the coil power isn’t intermittent. Also check grounds. They can cause weird problems. I’d also ohm out the coils to make sure they’re the correct ones. Finally, if the spark plug wires have the resistor caps still, pull each one and check the resistance. I have seen many of those way out of spec. If you’re using resistor plugs, ditch the resistor caps. And check where the plug wires push into the Dyna coils. That’s easy to bigger up.
Really enjoyed you talking us through the diagnostic process especially as I’ve just bought a Dyna coil to replace 50 year old originals that tested inconsistently. Wishing you good health too
Heads up that the Dyna systems (coils and ignition units) are reportedly made in China now and not as reliable as the older versions. Also, KZ 900 and Z1 should both be 6mm exhaust studs. If you worked on a KZ 900 with 8mm studs then someone had probably installed a KZ1000 head. Probably none of this matters to anyone.
Gotta love dynatec ignition remedies !! Made a world of difference on my 80 self restored 1000. LTD !! The hardest part about Mikunis he’s getting the things off the bike with factory air cleaners
Service manual says .002-.004. It's not my engine. If it eats a shim, I'd be responsible. Therefore, gets set exactly for the service manual standards. They were all, except for #3 exhaust (.003), at the high side of .004 however.
Enjoyed the video, Tom. Nice recovery on the ignition problem. On the valve clearances being out of spec. Moto Guzzi on their 2 valve per cylinder bikes had 2 specs on the clearances. Bikes to the U. S. Intake. .002 exh 004 all other bikes Internationally sold around the world were in .004 exh .006 exact same motor. Enjoyed the video and RIDE SAFE OUT THERE.
Hi Tom thanks for sharing your video. Just a quick comment on your covid. After testing positive for virtually two weeks I thought once I tested negative I’d be fine. Sadly no. My vitamin D had depleted. Once I started on supplements I began to get better. Best wishes
Thanks. Subscribe w/notifications and you'll see the next one coming out on a ZRX1200, with some O-Ring detective work, air-cut valve carburetor nonsense and other goofy stuff!
Great video. You might find if you can master the use of an oscilloscope you would be able compare each ignition circuit for each cylinder and actually see what's going on. It would make it much easier to diagnose faults.
That's a great idea, in fact, I purchased a cheap hand-held oscilloscope over a year ago, haven't figured out how to apply it to my jobs, but that's a good way! I'll have to research how to do that. Thanks.
@@MotoRestoFL - OK - I prefer a bench top oscilloscope with a large screen. Some of the more expensive ones have 4 input channels - each with their own colour on the display so you could monitor many circuits at the same time on a Z1 900. I like them because I can actually see what's going on. Unfortunately high voltage probes are expensive to monitor the actual output voltage of the ignition coils but you can still see a lot from the 12 Volt input side of them. You can also take screen shots of a good working bike and use those to compare to a non working one. After a while you'll have a library of good and bad motor screen shots with notes as to what fixed it and you'll be miles ahead.
Everything on that bike (apart from that exhaust) looks really nice. Surely the owner wants a better looking exhaust on it than that nasty bitsa one, it looks really awful and totally spoils the bike!
