[kitvogel]

hello!

Very excited to join this forum. I've recently acquired my first Honda, not to mention my first street bike. The bikes I generally gravitate toward are enduros and I'm actually pretty excited to step out've 'thumper' land for a change. A pal of mine recently handed me the keys to his '78 Honda Hawk II, non-running.

It's a gorgeous bike, much more chrome than I'm used to. A mentionable mod; the bike has a 1980, 6 speed, Nighthawk 450 engine. I'm very excited to dig in an give the bike a second life. It's much too good looking to sit and collect dust...

First thing's first; carbs are off to be cleaned and I've been going through the electrical. Fresh battery, no spark. The starter turns, but I've been wracking my brain for liable suspects - wiring, cdi, ignition coil, pulsar coil(what's that?). I imagine many of you have been to this rodeo, are there likely/common areas I should focus on? Also, can anyone steer me in the right direction as far as testing my cdi and starter coil...?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

 

[Chainman]

Welcome kitvogel,

Here's a link to the thread that helped me diagnose my faulty cdi:

https://www.hondatwins.net/forums/6...400-450-cb450sc-manual-trans-1978-1986-a.html

Shain

 

[J-T]

First, the CDI ignition system is separate from the rest of the bike's electrical system (no battery required). Start with the Run/Kill-Ignition Switch test in the above link. That gets a good share of them.

 

[chaindrivecharlie]

Hello and welcome to the forum!, can't wait to see some pics. You should start a project thread on it too.

 

[kitvogel]

Excellent. This link's precisely what I've needed to get started. Much appreciated

 

[troy]

Found myself in exactly the same situation last fall with exactly the same bike. Nearly drove myself crazy trying to figure it out (of course I'm not an electrical genius and it was my first attempt at anything like this)

My bike had lots of electrical modifications, shorts, hacks, splices, etc over the past 40 years including some components that clearly weren't original. In attempting to trouble shoot the problem I sort of learned how my multi-meter worked, how to read the wiring diagram and a bit about electrical theory (sort of)

In my case disconnecting the kill switch managed to get me the spark I was after. From there I was eventually able to figure out why and fix the problem. Also, ignition switch in 2nd position.

Good luck.