New Member Intro and no Spark!
 

Hi guys, been lurking for awhile and using all of Smithers how to guides to rebuild my father's 65 CA 95. Brief history on the bike is my father purchased the bike brand new and rode it to high school. My grandfather later took the bike under his wing and put over 40,000 miles on the bike riding back and forth to work rain, snow, or shine. I have his maintenance documents in the orginal owners manual(cool!).

So far I've completely stripped the bike down, sandblasted everything, rebuilt the motor and carb, and reassembled. The bike is currently mocked up because I would like to give it a shake down run before I paint and put all the fancy chrome back on.

Last night I got a new battery installed and much to my surprise the electric starter cranked over! Really excited! The bike has been sitting in my grandmothers basement for about 30 years and has been in pieces for the last 2 years while I slowwwy restore this thing.

The good, taillight works, headlight has power to it but the bulb is toast. So, electrically everything seems to be in good order. I then tested for spark by holding the plug against the cylinder and bumped it over, nothing. Checked the other side still nothing. Bad!. Tested the green wire going into the coil, it has constant power. Tested the white wire going into the coil it also has constant power. Cleaned the points adjusted the gap to .014 and tested the green wire that comes out to the condensor and points, it also has constant power. If I touch the points arm it has constant power as well. What gives? My logic is that the coil is bad.The power is going in but isn't making any spark. Am I wrong? This whole points thing has me confused. So, I could totally be missing something.

I'll get some pictures up tonight.

Any help would be appreciated. Great forum!

Hey guy glad to see you come into the light here! :) Sounds like you have quite and important project going on and you are making some good progress. Can't wait to see some pictures of your machine and also the condition it's in.

The wire that goes from the coil to the plug is probably one of the weaker links on the engine. Just give that a close inspection for cracks and breakage. Also the sparkplug is in good condition I assume? And when you turn the engine over slowly you see the points opening and closing right?

The best part is my father doesn't know I have the bike and I plan to give it to him upon completion. Whenever that happens... The plugs wires look a little rough one has some tape on it, but I haven't inspected them. I'll check tonigh and see whats under that tape tonight for sure. Also I have been using the plugs that were in the bike when I got it. I gapped them and they look good, but I should proable just buy new ones to eliminate that issue. I'll do some inspecting tonight and get some pics up.

Thannks smithers,

When you get a chance, check for a waxy substance on the coil. It shows up as a drip on the underside of the coil. Finding this substance on the outside of the coil means that it overheated and may be dead. Broken spark plug wires indicates trouble as well. If the coil is clean, you can check the ohm resistance. A good coil usually reads 2.0-3.0. The spark plug wires are 7mm and can be replaced with 7mm snowmobile solid core spark plug wire.

ALSO BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING..........

Make sure the key is in the right position! From the key insert position turn the key one or two "clicks" up. We had a member with the same problem and was knocking himself out wondering why he had no spark. He had the key in the "one click" down position.

The day I brought the benly home woodpile fresh! Wrapped in a blue tarp for the last few years and prior to that in my grandmothers basement for about 30 yrs.
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/1934/1002809x.jpg

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Yup 40,000 miles! Thought it was 4,000 at the first glance and after looking at the maintenance records it truly has 40k.
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5955/1002829k.jpg

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Sandblasted and disassembled

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5907/1002937v.jpg

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Out to the garage I go to make the inspections you guys have mentioned! I'll update in the morning.

Looking at that odometer reading makes me wonder if this might be the highest mileage CA95 in the states ?
Glad your bringing it back to life .

Hi welcome to the forum, the coil should be wired with green and black, the white wire you mention, should be wired to the dynamo. That is unless the wiring got dodgey over the years as mine has. Good luck and keep us posted we'll help ya get it all figured.

Thanks for the responses fellas. Spokes, I pulled the coil last night and couldn't see any real wax build up or damage to the coil or the plug wires. So I tested the ohms, red test prob to green coil wire and black test prob to black coil wire and came up with 1.4. Jet black I mispoke in regards to the wire colors it hasn't been hacked thankfully. So, would this make sense that the coil is bad?

I checked out the original owners manual last night and my grandfather had kept records in the back few pages. Here is what I found.

-2/23/73- 13,423 miles new pistons, rings, and crank
-16,000 miles new chain
-17,000 miles new handle bars, seat cover and rear brake pads(crash?)
-19,0000 miles new rings, and general tune-up
-23,000 miles new chain and countershaft bearings
-3/17/81 34,000 miles lost left piston ring, rebuilt with first oversize pistons, rings. compression left cylinder 150 and right 145

He also left a bunch of notes including points gap, setting the timing, plug type and gap, etc. Cool stuff man, wish he was here to help me. I'm sure he had this thing figured out pretty good after all the work he did to it.

Coil?

The Baby dream in its current state!

http://[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/84/benly.jpg/]http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/4318/benly.jpg[/url][/IMG]

Interesting teal paint you have going on there. Have you checked the plug caps for resistance with your ohm meter? It may be a bad cap or cap to wire connection. The ohms sound about right for the coil. Another possibility is timing. Keep us posted.

I have tested many CA95 coils in search of good ones. I can't swear on a stack of bibles about the ohm readings, but anything I have tested that read below 2.0 did not work for me. So if all else fails, then try to find a suitable coil, which may be tough. Good Luck!

coil
 

If its any help, there ie a coil listed on ebay tonite. Its in Thialand though. Curt

Gentleman we have SPARK!! I checked all the things you guys suggested and everything looked good. I gapped my new plugs, put the old coil back in, hooked up the wires, to give it one last try. I re gapped the points per the owners manual, and turned it over. Sure enough I though I heard the spark hitting, no way, so I touched the spark plug, YUP! It was the best shock of my life!!! Spark looks good I was pumped! So, I think the points and my inproper gap job where the issue. Tried to test fire the engine but is was already 11:30 so I called it a night and went to be happy.

Glad you like the paint, it's just etching primer I plan to paint the bike gloss black like it was originallly. The od green is just temporary. Hopefully get back in the garage tonight but it doesn't look good. The fifteen minutes I told the wifey turned into 3.5 hrs last night so she wasn't to impressed.

Thanks again fellas.

Congrats on getting a spark! Perhaps the points were making bad contact and the shifting and adjusting and resetting got some life to the plugs.

Points are new to me so I'm sure that my adjustments were the issue. Anyways glad it fired. Saturday night I poured a little gas in the carb and after a minute or two of cranking she sputtered to life and died. Woohooo!! Nice! I then hooked up a fuel line to a gas tank and primed the carb once again, same thing sputtered to life and died, the carb didnt pull any off the fuel from my temporary tank. It'll just burn the prime and then quit tried this a number of times. So for some reason its not pulling fuel. I did rebuild the carb but who knows I'm sure I have something out of whack in there. I have the both idle and mixture screws turn out 1 1/4 turns per the owners manual. Near the top of the carb body where the throttle goes into the carb on the side is a silver flat head screw. What is it and what does it do? Suggestions welcome.

Thank you