CB360 spark problems

If there is a wire with a short, all you had to do was wiggle it the right way installing the coils and make it blow fuses. check all the wires you wuld have touched or moved while putting the coils in, one must have a crack or something and is now touching the frame or another wire.
 
What coils are you using?

Stock coils (five Ohm) and headlight alone will pull 8A. Pretty easy to pull an extra two and blow a 10A fuse.
 
Maritime said:
If there is a wire with a short, all you had to do was wiggle it the right way installing the coils and make it blow fuses. check all the wires you wuld have touched or moved while putting the coils in, one must have a crack or something and is now touching the frame or another wire.

Yeah you're right I'm gonna check that again.

What coils are you using?

Stock coils (five Ohm) and headlight alone will pull 8A. Pretty easy to pull an extra two and blow a 10A fuse.

I'm using high voltage coils I found on ebay, not sure of their reference, here is a picture.

Yeah the 10A was just a temporary fix because I did not received my 15A fuses yet
 

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Check you have the insulating washers in correct place on points bolt. You probably have a green wire plugged into a red/green somewhere or another earth/ground lead in wrong place. It sounds like it's going through some sort of load or fuse would blow instantly. 10 amp will work as long as you don't have any lights on. If you have an old indicator/bulb holder (21w~23w bulb) connect it across fuse contacts. (leaver fuse out, alligator/crocodile clips on leads) If you have a short, the bulb will light up. Leave it there while you check various connections.It saves on blowing a ton of fuses while troubleshooting. The light green/red neutral wire is a grounding wire, it normally will have battery voltage after neutral light bulb (bulb is load so fuse doesn't blow) If you have bulb holders in speedo and tach, neutral will have black in and red/green out
 
Do you have a multimeter? If so, can you measure resistance between the black and the green wire for the coil?
 
I just received my 15A fuses but did not had the time to work on the bike today,

Do you have a multimeter? If so, can you measure resistance between the black and the green wire for the coil?

I just checked the resistance between the black and green wires and I have 0.00 ohms on both coils... (multitmeter set to 20k), shouldn't that be 3 ohms?? Did I just get ripped off buying brand new broken coils?

Check you have the insulating washers in correct place on points bolt. You probably have a green wire plugged into a red/green somewhere or another earth/ground lead in wrong place. It sounds like it's going through some sort of load or fuse would blow instantly. 10 amp will work as long as you don't have any lights on. If you have an old indicator/bulb holder (21w~23w bulb) connect it across fuse contacts. (leaver fuse out, alligator/crocodile clips on leads) If you have a short, the bulb will light up. Leave it there while you check various connections.It saves on blowing a ton of fuses while troubleshooting. The light green/red neutral wire is a grounding wire, it normally will have battery voltage after neutral light bulb (bulb is load so fuse doesn't blow) If you have bulb holders in speedo and tach, neutral will have black in and red/green out

I will check the points bolts again but I just changed the contact breakers and paid attention re installed them correctly,
The 21w bulb instead of the fuse is a great idea! I don't think I have that in my garage unfortunetaly :(
 
tahitianrider said:
I just received my 15A fuses but did not had the time to work on the bike today,

I just checked the resistance between the black and green wires and I have 0.00 ohms on both coils... (multitmeter set to 20k), shouldn't that be 3 ohms?? Did I just get ripped off buying brand new broken coils?

Three Ohms should be the absolute minimum. Five Ohms would be better, in my opinion.

Set the meter to 200 and try again?
 
Sonreir said:
Three Ohms should be the absolute minimum. Five Ohms would be better, in my opinion.

Set the meter to 200 and try again?

Still 0 Ohms with the multimeter set to 200, damn! Hopefully I'll be able to get my money back through ebay/paypal.

I did check the secondary resistance too (green wire to plug cap) and I have a correct 14.6 ohms
 
Pretty much any bulb holder and bulb wirth some wires will work, old tail light, automotive.With the bikes you have listed I would think you have an old indicator or something?
 
crazypj said:
Pretty much any bulb holder and bulb wirth some wires will work, old tail light, automotive.With the bikes you have listed I would think you have an old indicator or something?

Oh okay, yes I totally have that! I have many indicators and tail light units, I didn't think an old school type indicator bulb was 21w ! I though I needed a headlight assembly for that much watts.
I will make something out of an indicator when I'll search for that short in the wiring, thanks for the trick :)
 
Depending where you are in the world, indicator bulbs vary between 18w and 23w. Headlight bulb will work as well but if you have a dead short it gets a bit bright and a bit hot. Headlights are usually 35~65w plus, it has a higher amp draw so battery voltage will drop faster (over 5amps for 65w, 12v bulb)
 
tahitianrider said:
Still 0 Ohms with the multimeter set to 200, damn! Hopefully I'll be able to get my money back through ebay/paypal.

I did check the secondary resistance too (green wire to plug cap) and I have a correct 14.6 ohms

Looks like you have CDI ignition coils. You'll definitely want to get those replaced.
 
Sonreir said:
Looks like you have CDI ignition coils. You'll definitely want to get those replaced.

Hum, the seller I bought the coils from advertised them as perfectly compatible with the 1976 CB360... as a direct swap from the OEM ones, I will need to get my money back...

Theses should fit without problems right ? Plus I already bough from 4into1 and I know they are reliable, although I need to pay 30% of custom taxes to france.

https://4into1.com/ignition-coils-and-caps-honda-cb-cl-sl350k-cb-cl-cj360/

Depending where you are in the world, indicator bulbs vary between 18w and 23w. Headlight bulb will work as well but if you have a dead short it gets a bit bright and a bit hot. Headlights are usually 35~65w plus, it has a higher amp draw so battery voltage will drop faster (over 5amps for 65w, 12v bulb)

That is good to know thanks, there is no chance of frying the bulb of the indicator doing so?
 
Only if you drop it ;D High load or dead short will just make it light up as normal, it should dim if everything is OK as whatever load you have on circuit will 'share' the voltage
 
Haha okay, nice trick anyway :)

I just sent back my faulty coils, waiting to receive my new set of 5 ohms coils from 4into1 to test everything again.
 
So I just came back from a week of hollidays (I spent working on my CX500 at my parents place :) )and received my brand new coils, these one are finally fine: a good 5 ohms primary and also my new 15A fuses.

I installed everything on the bike, first of all, I do not blow fuses anymore, even with the headlights on! so this is good.

However, I still have no spark at all on the right cylinder, I do have a blue spark on the left cylinder.

When I did the ignition timing, I only replaced the left contact breaker (because the brand new right one I received was faulty with wrong holes for bolts...), could this be the problem? or maybe the contact gap is incorrect?

Here is a quick slow motion video of the contact breakers when trying to start the bike, I can see sparks on both side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGoIupHeDSY
 
Do you have capacitors on there? Doesn't look like by those sparks. Do you have resistor caps and do they both check out? If you're getting spark at the points, power to both coils, but no spark at the plug, then the problem is your plug wire- either where it connects to the coil or the cap. Also a chance you have a fouled plug, so check that too.
 
I finally figured it out!! well to be honnest the potential problem has been mentionned before here, but when I check it the first I've somehow not seen it.

I tried to start without the points cover and boom, perfect sparks!
So I cheked the wires again and they were not shortening to the cover... but then I check the connector of the wire to the contact breaker of the right cylinder, and it is the connector that was touching the cover so making a short and so no spark on the right cylinder!
So I pushed the connector further back inside, put back the cover and the bike fired up perfectly at first try!! :)

I feel so stupid for not seeing this the first time, plus you guys mentionned the problems with wires touching the points cover.

The bike idle smoothly and is no longer running on one cylinder at idle :) I'm going for a test ride right now !
 
I paint the inside of my points covers with liquid tape. Just a little extra insurance against shorting.
 
That's a great idea! I had the exact same one I thought "hum I should liquid tape the inside of the points cover", I was worried the performix liquid tape would not hold the heat but if you don't have any problems I'll do it too :)

I just came back from the test drive: the bike runs perfectly!!
Before it was bogging as hell, I couldn't rev the bike properly and it was running on one cylinder at idle, plus it was stalling when not and would not restart...

Now that I did the ignition timing, new coils, condenser & plugs, plus I fully rebuild the carbs and gas tank, the bike is perfect I love it :)

Thanks a lot for your help on this problem!!
 
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