1980 GSX250 - no spark

Hi All,

Some of you may have noticed I've been trying to sell my GSX250 on Gumtree (as a non-runner) for a while now. Well, I recently found some time to try and get it running again and now I have a few questions.



Background: Bike was running but had an old battery that wouldn't hold charge. During the battery change I accidentally shorted/earthed and lots of smoke later...no longer wants to start. I contacted Ben (@Ben Mulligan) recently, but before getting him to have a look I thought I'd have a go at getting her running. Checked for spark (zero). Checked main 15Amp fuse...looks okay. Pulled electronics apart to try and find what might have been toasted. All looks okay. Bike has had some constructive wiring done at some stage as it doesn't reflect what's in the manual.

Does anyone know what this piece is used for?



It was attached to the frame on the LHS near where all the other electrical devices are. It looks like it should have another wire attached to it.



The one wire that is attached to it has been setup to take the main fuse holder and that goes to the positive terminal on the battery. I also noticed (reading the manual) that the fuel petcock is different to the image provided. What does the little flat blade screw do?



All of the other electrical devices...starter, R/R etc all look fine and there's no burn smells anywhere. I haven't checked the coils yet, but I'm starting to wonder where the problem really is. I'm useless at electrics and I almost give up before I start when there's an electrical problem. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks Clancy. The smoke came from the left side of the bike. I was on the RHS fitting the battery. I'm going to pull the tank off and see if any wires might have melted or have scorch marks on them. I read one of the posts on this site where a sparky redid the entire loom for his GSX250 when he couldn't get spark and his tests showed nothing was really wrong. His bike was fine after that Man I wish I was that talented.

 

You're a good man Joker. I will have a crack with a multi meter and PM you if I'm still sparkless. Thanks Frank

 

Hi Joker. Due to the nice day today, the financial controller had me working in the yard. Just watched the YT video link and tried testing my R/R.

I used this little cheap unit, but seemed to work okay (I watched another YT video to familiarise myself with continuity, voltage testing etc). Handy, but not sure what the results mean. Basically, in the video you linked the guy gets beeps when performing two tests on the yellow wires. I don't get the beeps. I tried the test on a piece of metal and it beeped. My R/R is a little different from the one in the video.

Mine has an earth wire (I assume that's what it is), 3 yellow wires (which I used to do the test both positive and negative) a RED wire and another wire which is browny orange in colour (I used these in the test as per the video). Does my test results mean my R/R is stuffed?

Frank

 

Yep, used the black wire as well...no beebs. Also, the RED wire and Orangey wire on my R/R plug into a little black box. The blackbox also has wires going to my flasher. I was reading the manual last night to find what this is, but I couldn't see any mention of it. Also, the manual suggests testing the R/R and displays a 5-wire matrix for results of the test, so I'm thinking this isn't the standard R/R on my bike. Are R/R different from one bike to the next? I'm sure I read somewhere on this site where someone posted a link for buying a new R/R for these bikes, but I'm having trouble finding the post. This is the little black box...

 

That's the video I was watching last night. Very informative. You can learn a lot from YT, but I really struggle with electrics...I'm hoping the penny will drop soon and I'll stop asking silly questions.

 

@Ben Mulligan lives not too far away from me, so I might PM him and go over and have a look at his electrical setup. Might give me a few clues looking at another GSX250. I'm in Oakleigh South Joker, where are you?

 

I've bought another R/R from eBay. Should be here in a few weeks. Thanks for your help.

 

Yes, it was you I was referring to. The plot has thickened a little bit as I have discovered the R/R on my bike is actually a Yamaha RegRec. Do you still have your bike Evo? Are you able to tell me what R/R is on it? The (Yamaha) R/R on my bike has 6 wires; 3 yellow; 1 red; 1 black and 1 brown. I'm hoping the unit I purchased on eBay is the right one. Cheers Frank

 

Here's the real kicker...the R/R I took the picture of (in the previous post) is actually from another GSX250, but is identical to mine. The serial number stamp on my R/R was too faded for me to tell it was a Yamaha unit. Guess what the other GSX250 has a problem with? No spark!