I just got an 84 Honda 200ES. It won't start. Here's the symptons:
1. If you shoot starting fluid in, it will fire on the starting fluid.
2. Spark plug looks ok, but is not new.
3. Spark looks weak.
4. Checked coil according to manual. All resistances are within tolerances.

My questions:
1. Can the coil be bad but still be within tolerances for resistance?
2. Why would it fire with starting fluid?
3. Can a car coil be substutited for testing without damaging the CDI or the wiring? I do not have a spare coil that I can use to test.
4. What else should I check?
5. Where can I find a new coil and how much do they run?

Any help you guys could give would be greatly appreciated.

 

Has it ever sat for a periord of time,,,,,,,,,I would suggest to you, that you clean out the carb throughly, all ports and holes, and make sure you clean out the jets

 

Also, make sure your caburator is getting gas, check the fuel filter in the tank if it has one, to get at it, just remove the petcock assembly, and this little white tube thing should stick out, pull on that and a filter should pop out, my 200m has one and it works great, always crap on it when it comes out..if you have an inline filter, clean it out and hook all hoses back up to the tank, and put the hose into like a bucket or something and turn on the gas shutoff to see if fuel flows freely now.....also make sure ur choke isnt on...something to check

 

PD covered it pretty good. It fires because you have good enough spark to ignite the starting fluid....I would check all your fuel items

 

Thanks for all the responses. I mentioned the starting fluid and weak spark because I was wondering if the spark is weak enough to not fire the gas but strong enough to fire starting fluid. Could it be a spark plug problem? I did check the plug wire also. Thanks.

 

you have still not mentioned if you are getting fuel? if you have new gas in it, you should be fine with the spark you have

 

I have gas to the carb but I am not sure if the gas is getting to the engine. I will check it out more fully tonite.

 

For the little effort that it is, take the carb completly off, remove the bowl and clean the whole thing with carb cleaner. Empty all of the gas from the tank, remove the petcock clean the internal filter, use new gas and install an inline filter if it doesn't have one already.

There is a product on the market that you can use after it is cleaned manually, its put out by GUNK its carb medic, with the bike running and the airfilter removed squirt some of the gunk into the intake. You may have to feather the gas to keep it running but make sure not to squirt too much in it will clean out the ports a little more.


These are all of the things i did when my bike was working crappy. hope it helps