I.ve rebuilt and given away a flock of KLT 200 and 250's to teenagers I still own 3 which are just to finicky to give away. As well I rebuild and give away as many 185 and 200 Honda's as I can scrape together. 90% of the issues you are having are simple and normal to restoring these old trikes to a riding state( I don't do many "perfect" resto's). I love some of the tricks Kawasaki put into their 3 wheelers, and after a while different issues are something you recognise and deal with as eating supper. I've got an older brother an hour south of you near Seguin - he and my father taught me alot over a 15 year period and for 20 years I've kept going on fix and repair as a hobby and a way to help "problem kids" as well as building custom trikes for fun / profit (Right now its a TT- 500 Yamaha Honda X and a YTM XS 450 )

 

OK, we've fixed the slider problem, with the thumb throttle it will return clear to the bottom now.

Not starting for me today though. This is a strange situation, want to see if you've run across it. Also this is not a new issue, something I've been struggling with since I got it, but I just now understand it well enough to explain it.

When I pull and ground the plug to the cylinder head, I can't always get a good spark to jump the gap. I'm always having to put the battery charger on and let it charge a while at 6 amp rate to get it to spark at all. Can rarely get an inconsistent spark with no charger. After the charger has been on a while, I get good, consistent sparking across the gap. Normally start it that way, but haven't had the time to mess with it all today.

Now if I was reading this for the first time, I'd say probably a bad battery. May be, but this is a new battery that was filled and charged properly, and the bike has run on this battery. If its bad, its because I ruined it by overcharging.

Also, the spark plug wire and cap are new. I've even run a test by hooking a wire up to the spark plug gap, then holding the cap and wire away from the plug while its in the head, then hitting the starter. I can get an arc to jump from the wire to the tip of the plug just fine with our without the battery charger, sometime over an inch of arc! It even ran once while I had the spark plug cap in my hand with this wire sending an arc to the plug.

I replaced the old battery because of this problem. I thought I wasn't getting enough juice out to create the spark, although the old and new battery have no trouble powering the fuel pump, starter, lights, etc.

So it seems to me that for some reason I have enough battery to operate everything but not enough to create a quality, consistent spark across the spark plug gap.

Ever run into this one? The Haynes book says that one cause of poor spark is an inefficient starter motor. "A starter motor with worn brushes and a worn or dirty commutator will draw excessive amounts of current causing power starvation in the ignition system". I wonder.....

One more problem I'm thinking on, the clutch will not fully disengage. I have the cable adjusted all the way out, and the hand lever is operating the cable as much as it can. I think I need to adjust the clutch release lever (which is what the cable operates on the bottom end) and pull it around more so cable will do the job. Have you seen this one before?

Thanks! Trent

 

Ok, to your electrical problem, to check if if the starter is doing it, unhook the electric starter and use the rope pull, does this resolve your issue?

2) probably not is my guess, My best guess is you have a bad connection to your stator or, possibly a bad stator, you need to check the ohms from the stator to the cdi, I don't have a book with me, but your Haynes manual should tell you what your resistance should be, check that using a multimeter.

Lets fix the electrical, then we move to the clutch. Hows your oil level in your site glass, and has the clutch been getting worse or just do this all of a sudden??

 

Cool, will check pickup coil resistance tonight. Haynes says it should be between 590 and 710 ohms.

No pull start on this model, so can't try that, wish I could.

The clutch has never operated correctly, it got a little better after I adjusted the cable, but has never fully disengaged since I've had it. Oil level is at the top line in the sight glass, I recently changed it.

Thanks!

 

A spare starter I don't have, a good stator I do, The clutch may be worn out, or just sticky, did you use a regular motor oil in it? or a 4 stroke engine oil, far less damaging to your clutch. check your stator and get back to me.

 

Just checked resistance of the pickup coil. Haynes says to do this by opening the connector for the green and red pickup wires just before they join the CDI box and measuring resistance. I found 100k ohms there. Haynes says I should have 590 to 710 ohms.

Wondering if I tested correctly. Can you check one of yours and let me know what you get oldkawi?

Also, on the oil I just used Castrol GTX 20W50. Haynes gave out 4 different viscosities but didn't specify 4 stroke oil, what do you recommend? I don't mind changing.

Also, I have a spare clutch and stator off of an 84 250 that I picked up on eBay. But the stator did not come with the pickup coil, which if I measured correctly is what I need.....

Thanks again! Trent

 

pick up is probably gone, but, make sure your grounds are good to the battery and frame, trace the ground wire (black / gold)??? to the frame, make sure its grounded properly. useing 400 to 600 grit emery, scuff the face of the pick up coil, uses a magnifying glass to look for pin holes.

Change your oil out to a Honda / Kawi / whatever motorcycle oil is recommended for wet clutches

 

Ok, time for some theory. If the pickup coil is bad, why do I get a nice consistent arc when I test with the wire in the cap and arc across to the plug?

Seems to me that all the pickup coil does is send the signal to the CDI that turns voltage to primary winding of HT coil on and off, creating the high voltage on the secondary winding of the HT coil, which then goes to plug. If pickup coil was bad, I don't think I'd be seeing such a nice and regular arc there, correct?

Can you take a resistance measurement on one of your trikes that has the pickup coil? I'd just like to confirm that I tested correctly, and that you do see something between 300 and 700 ohms when you test a good one.

Regardless I'm searching for a pickup coil now. I've seen a few on eBay, and am following up with people I've bought parts from to see if I can find one. I'm sure I will eventually, but having trouble figuring out how it could be bad if I can get a regular spark (arc) from the cap to the plug.

I wish I had points.......Don't like this steady state ignition!

Thanks, Trent

 

Ok, you live in the land of high humidity, so grounds absoulutly have to be perfect (biggest cause of issues in the ignition.)
2) you issue is intermittent (as you stated) , assuming this thing sat for a period of time before you started the resto on it it will have issues with rust and contact, so you rebuilt the wiring harness. Does the issue on it exist when the machine is cold? is the spark intermittent after its warmed up, shut off, and you try to restart it?

3) Checked all 3 of my machines (2 X 250, 1 X 200) all are between 680 and 715 ohms from the stator. pick up coils will, on occation blow a pin hole through the face, and in combo with rust, moisture and wear will cause an intermittent issue.

4) Pull the starter check for significant wear change brushes if you have to, in my note book I have one machine (out of 23)which bound on occation and ate batteries before I figured it out and was also very weak on spark and starting, its also a machine I still own because of intermittent ignition issues.

If you want to go to points - buy points, plate and ignition for an 80 - 82 KL 200 enduro (KZ 250 as well, all though I've never tried the 250 version) they are an exact match for the motor, its been done before. Don't expect as stong of a trike. it won't run quite as well on the top end and, you have more of a moisture issue with points

 

Great tips/ideas.

1) I know what you mean about the negative connections, I did have a problem there initially but I think I've got that solved. As you know, the negative lead from the battery is connected to the frame, and both ends of that connection are solid. Where I had a problem was with the black/yellow wire that feeds the wiring harness, that wire is supposed to be joined in with the negative battery lead, but had become worn and frayed. I cut off the bad end and stripped the insulation back to get some fresh wire, then I used a propane torch to solder the yellow/black wire to the battery lead and wire (I couldn't get the big gauge battery wire to accept solder with soldering iron). Feels solid, and continuity tests from everywhere on the bike are all good. Neverless I'll double check here since its a known culprit.

And I did some work on the wiring harness, but still haven't checked every connection.

Also right about humidity here, but its been real low (10-30%) for a couple of weeks thanks to fronts from your part of the planet! But for this things 23 year life it has been exposed to major humidity.

2) Problem is intermittent when cold or hot. Makes no difference as far as I can tell.

3) I still haven't pulled the crankcase cover and looked at my pickup coil, but will to check for a pinhole on the face and also to determine general condition.

Awesome that yours measure between 680 and 715 ohms. Did you measure by opening the connection up close to the CDI box and just testing resistance across the two metal connector leads? According to Haynes the 250 A1 should measure between 570 and 850 ohms, the 250 A2, C, and P would be less at 390 to 590 ohms. You must have 250 A1s...If not A1s then that may help me answer #6 below.

4) I'm intrigued by the conversion to points. For what I need this machine to do I don't really need top end. But I do need pulling power, I'm using it to pull dirt and rocks in a trailer to do some fill work and build a boat ramp, thought this would be more fun than a used lawn mower! It sure is indeed when it runs. Speaking of top end, last time I had it out I let it go in 5th gear on the street, think I got close to 50 mph, it got a little squirrelly so I let off, but it does want to go on the top end currently!

5) If I do pull the starter, do I need to open it up to check the brushes? Never done this one before.

6) I have found a pickup coil off an 83 200 B1, but according to Haynes it will have a resistance between 390 and 590 ohms, less than mine which is between 590 and 710. Questions here: Do you think the lower resistance will cause me a problem? If so I could add a resistor to an output wire to bring the resistance to within spec, but don't know if it would help. I don't know if the resistance has to do with the sensitivity at the coil for picking up signal off the rotor or if it has to do with signal strength sent to the CDI. If its the former I don't think adding a resistor would help anything, if the latter I think it should. What do you think?

I think its time for a beer. Sorry for the long post but as you can tell I still have more questions than answers.

Thanks so much for the help!

Trent