having trouble with spark ..

So i got my 82 xs 400 in january , i rode it for a few month of and on no prob.. It set for about 3or4 days i jumped on it started her up she ran for 10 secs then died .. pulled the plugs spark on the left good , checked the right and she only sparks once i let off the start button ... so i swapped the coil wire and plugs over to the opposite side ... no change so i dont think its the coils plugs or wires i tried a new cdi no luck ... she just will not run any ideas ?????? im just getting into the motorcycle game im kinda stumped ....

I am willing to jump off the deep end, I have SOHC so if you have a DOHC, this might not be your fix. Have you checked battery voltage? Is the charging system working? (ok so you can't check) maybe.

i rode it for a few month of and on no prob.. It set for about 3or4 days i jumped on it started her up she ran for 10 secs then died ..

Click to expand...

It just that this seems to be a charged battery for a few months, and 3 to 4 days and ran for 10 secs, then died. What is your battery output? have you been keeping it on a charger/maintainer while its been out of service?
1st Check fuses. Look for grounding issues first. Clean the ground spots, some sandpaper/dielectric grease to protect the metal. (Clean the connector and the joining metal place.
So you could test my hypothesis by taking a auto battery, (if its in car "NOT RUNNING") try jumping your bike with the normal jump start procedures.

Okay so that's all normal. So my jumping to conclusions is... Your stator wires are shot. unless the stator wires have been replaced by your bikes PO. The wires go shot quite some time ago. (30 year old bike) Keyword Stator, you will see shot wires all over the WWW. I used Drewpys RE-Wire for the stator specific steps. there are others and each of them have their merits. The quick and easy way to check, With a cool bike, (don't touch a hot muffler) ohh yea not running for the last month.

At the Left side, rear side of the motor, you can see the (my bike) the Oil pressure sending unit, follow the case to the rear. you should see 2 wires coming out from below the engine,and back from the sending unit. from there those 2 wires head up to the battery box just to connect up and go back of the bike. Where those two wires come out, is normally very brittle. so brittle you feel it crack or be completely stiff, with no flexibility. without it cracking and breaking. and it only right there at the bottom of the motor. go up 3inches and its fine.

I have been wrong before, its fairly easy repair job, next steps would to use the manual, and check the voltage regulator, and Rectifier.

I jumped on the battery bandwagon cause once the battery gets to low voltage, I think 7 volts it stops working, even If your driving 55mph, It will kill on you. its listed on here. (our website) Good luck

yamahacafe400 said:

So i got my 82 xs 400 in january , i rode it for a few month of and on no prob.. It set for about 3or4 days i jumped on it started her up she ran for 10 secs then died .. pulled the plugs spark on the left good , checked the right and she only sparks once i let off the start button ... so i swapped the coil wire and plugs over to the opposite side ... no change so i dont think its the coils plugs or wires i tried a new cdi no luck ... she just will not run any ideas ?????? im just getting into the motorcycle game im kinda stumped ....

Click to expand...

Another possibility may be you have a bad pickup coil. The electrical section in the downloadable manual's here does not tell you how to trouble shoot this problem, just that it could be a problem in the flow chart section of the electrical manual.

I've got a 82 xs400j

Here's a copy of an email I sent to someone else here on how I tested.

1) I assume you've download the manuals for here or have actual manuals...

2) Once I realized I only had spark on one side (swapped coil's, wire's, plug's from side to side), I used the manual to check the basic electrical stuff....

3) Since it look's like you've got the main coils out, the simple test for me was to leave each coil, spark plug wire, and spark pluck on top of the head. Then JUST switch the connection. Now had spark on the side I didn't before.....

4) Page 6-19 of the electrical manual from here show's the pickup coils BUT not how to test them so rather than pulling all the case's on the left side (which you may have to do eventually) you can test the pickup coil's at the connection to the TCI box...

5) Pull the top connector from the top of the TCI box on page 6-19

6) Set your test meter to ohm's or what ever to test connectivity

7) There are 3 wires that straight from the connector to the wiring harness. Ignore the wire's that have there own little bullet connector's.

8) From the wire side of the connector, stuff the black probe into the connector so it's touching the connection for the black wire. Now stuff the red probe into the orange side. You should get connectivity then repeat with the grey wire. The orange wire side on mine was bad which actually traced back to the side I wasn't getting spark from.

9) if one side is bad, you'll need to pull off the cover's on the left side to access the pickup coil's then remove or move what ever part's you need to be able to remove the wiring for the pickup coil's. This goes in behind the chain, over to the right side, up under the battery, under the seat and back to the tdi

You can find the pickup coil's on ebay of maybe from somehere

Good Luck

thanks for the info