TOPIC:

hi ager,

No offence but i passed out three times reading your write-ups. An occasional (,) (.) and "Capital" would be helpful. It allows those of us attempting to help, to zero-in on the important details more quickly without going blind !

Don't have quite enough info (for myself personally) to make a call on your issue(s). Could be ignition, might be carbs, electrical is always on the short list and with these bikes - could be a combination ! This is the time to understand the meaning of "patience" and "methodical" !

Your retreiving the bike from your "hacker" will be the best thing you can do for yourself. It has been stated many times that the only people capable of successfully working on these machines is someone who currently owns ones AND is riding it ! And for the longer the better. Former Kawasaki mechanics from the era will not touch them, even if they could remember anything about them !

You've made no solid reference to a "Manual". If you do not have one, or access to one - get one ! An electronic version is available here but a hard copy is preferred. You are dead in the water without a manual. Read it front to back and then read it again. You'll be surprised what you missed the first time. The diagnostics are straightforward enough but admittedly can be "above" some not familiar with bikes, engines and basic mechanics. That's where this forum can help fill in the gaps.

A favor to yourself and the forum: Read the F.A.Q.'s ! Then refer to your manual and make as much sense of your concerns as you can.
Then read through the various forum topics and read them thoroughly. This may seem tedious but countless info is there ! Some threads will have many pages filled with general banter and dialogue but buried within could very well be that "light-bulb" moment.

Then, when you've decided that you are in fact "stuck" - ask away. With a good familiarity of the above mentioned material you can ask specific, intelligent questions and get quicker and more accurate information. In other words: What you will receive in help will be proportional to what you ask and how you ask it. You'll progress faster this way.
The resources here are outstanding and judging by your photos the bike is well worth the effort; the results worth the work. Frustration will be your biggest enemy and knowing when to calmly put the tools down and walk away for a while will be your best asset.

I'm certain I speak for most when I say we look forward to watching your progress and helping where we can !

Hi.
Sounds like your having the same problem that I had and a pain in the arse to sort as every thing checked out but would not start after only leaving for a week.
Give this a try it worked for my problem.
Take the cover off the ign unit and on the bottom right hand side are 3 resisters, main colour green which had a carbon build up around them causing a short. This was all cleaned off and plugged back in and up she fired on all 6.
Mind you b4 my mate found the fault did follow all the advice from members and the FAQ section and replaced the coils plus new leads and do have a stronger spark than the original coils
Hope this info will help you resolve your problem. Its worth a try

scotch wrote: hi ager,

Don't have quite enough info (for myself personally) to make a call on your issue(s). Could be ignition, might be carbs, electrical is always on the short list and with these bikes - could be a combination ! This is the time to understand the meaning of "patience" and "methodical" !

Your retreiving the bike from your "hacker" will be the best thing you can do for yourself. It has been stated many times that the only people capable of successfully working on these machines is someone who currently owns ones AND is riding it ! And for the longer the better. Former Kawasaki mechanics from the era will not touch them, even if they could remember anything about them !

You've made no solid reference to a "Manual". If you do not have one, or access to one - get one ! An electronic version is available here but a hard copy is preferred. You are dead in the water without a manual. Read it front to back and then read it again. You'll be surprised what you missed the first time. The diagnostics are straightforward enough but admittedly can be "above" some not familiar with bikes, engines and basic mechanics. That's where this forum can help fill in the gaps.

A favor to yourself and the forum: Read the F.A.Q.'s ! Then refer to your manual and make as much sense of your concerns as you can.
Then read through the various forum topics and read them thoroughly. This may seem tedious but countless info is there ! Some threads will have many pages filled with general banter and dialogue but buried within could very well be that "light-bulb" moment.

Then, when you've decided that you are in fact "stuck" - ask away. With a good familiarity of the above mentioned material you can ask specific, intelligent questions and get quicker and more accurate information. In other words: What you will receive in help will be proportional to what you ask and how you ask it. You'll progress faster this way.
The resources here are outstanding and judging by your photos the bike is well worth the effort; the results worth the work. Frustration will be your biggest enemy and knowing when to calmly put the tools down and walk away for a while will be your best asset.

I'm certain I speak for most when I say we look forward to watching your progress and helping where we can !

You know it Scotch!! I especially like the part "when frustration sets in , walk away. I can't count how many times I did this and came back and had an "aha moment" and all was back on track.

Nicely put!!

What a difference some new plugs make she is running just need to tidy up a few wires and it will be the test ride praise the lord

Hi Scotch i unplugged all the coils wires he had been playing with and put them back as per the manual i have 2 actually and they are a bible of course i bought some new bosch plugs and she went instantly hopefully i am over the worse and can move forward now thanks for your advice cheers Val Ager

Ager wrote: What a difference some new plugs make she is running just need to tidy up a few wires and it will be the test ride praise the lord

So, lesson learned here. Never forget the old KIS principal. Keep it Simple- Just because it's a KZ1300 doesn't mean the ignition circuit crapped out. Look for the obvious.

Also for the old Dogs out there. Remember the old Champion Spark plug cleaner/tester?




Give the old plugs an abrasive blast and then an air blast to clear the abrasive media from the plug. Then screw the plug in to the test chamber and apply compressed air and watch the spark in the glass window. You could throttle the air and watch for the spark to stop and read the gauge and see at what point the spark plug would fail (at what compression). Most plugs with 10,000 miles on them would fail at 60 - 70 psi. A good plug would fail at 100 psi. It was a great tester but as a cleaner often left abrasive beads on the bottom of the spark plug which was often accused of piston ring failure down the road. Then spark plugs got to be so cheap that cleaning service cost almost as much as replacement so these old babies went by the wayside