Not turning over??

[Anonymous]

Hi all, Myles again. I just started to rebuild my '83 gs550e o0n the weekend and was greatly dissapointed. I cleaned the carbs thouroghly and put them back on correctly. The night before I tested the starter, sparkplugs and ignition system, all was good. I knew when I bought the bike one of the coils was bad but two cylinders still fired up. So I got everything back on, got fuel into the carbs and went for the start button. I excpected a little cough and sputtering but was left with nothing. The starter motor was whining away but no motor turn. After a few attempts we made sure the engine wasn't flooded.(check) We tried again but now the starter motor wouldn't go. :x We tested all the systems again and could find no reason for the starter not to work. It would fire if you arced the solinoid but not from the start button. The circuit tested ok but the button wouldn't fire it up.

I started the weekend off by having everything go well with finding the parts and battery I needed. Found a wicked deal on a rear tire and was looking forward to possibly taking it down the road on sunday. Now as it stands I have two new problems, the start button not firing, and th eengine not turning.

The guy I am working on the bike with has rebuilt many bikes in his day but mostly hondas. He wants to know if the CDI box only sends a message to the coils to fire up the plugs or does it actually have a measurable charge that only gets amplified by the coils?

I am lost at this point because the manual's not much help. If there are any suggestions out there I am all ears?
Thanks
Myles

[focus frenzy]

the ignition box works like points, it closes the circut via the ground side, the coils have 12 volts to them all the time the switch is on.
the pickup coils generate a low power signal that tells the ignition control box when to close the circut.

[Billy Ricks]

Here is how to test the ignitor (CDI). If yours is anything like mine you should have four terminals in and four out. If you are facing the left side of the bike looking at the ignitor the four to the rear of the bike are in, fed by the signal generators. The four to the left are out to feed signal to the coils.

The four to the rear of the bike will be designated like this, the front and rear terminals to the far right will be terminals one and two respectively. The front and rear terminals to the immediate left will be three and four.

Now, remove plugs one and two and lay them on the head so they are grounded. With a multi-tester set on the X1ohm mode and the ignition switch on, connect the negative probe of the multitester to terminal one and the positive probe to terminal two. The moment you connect the second probe plug one should fire. Now connect the negative probe to terminal three and the positive probe to terminal four and plug two should fire. If the plugs fire then the transistors in the ignitor are working properly.

[DJones]

you might also want to check your start button for continuity.