1972 Honda CL 70 wont spark

I am tearing my hair out here!!! This is a basket case CL 70. Can anybody tell me the simpliest way to check for spark? All the wires are dissconnected and I have access to the five wires from the engine. The Green / white wire is the neutral safety switch. I have a double white connector that one wire goes to the points and the other to the right side of the top coil. ( same point ) The single white connector goes to the left side of the top coil. The remaining connector has two wires in it electricallly insulated ones the green white neutral safety wire and the other is a white wire going to the bottom coil.
I have a brand new coil that ohm checks good. Points are working and gapped right. The new coil though doesnt have the two leads the stock one had. Doesnt have a cap on the blue wire as the stock coil did. Can anybody help me here? If possible I would like to at least get spark here withouit hooking up all the rest of the wires to kind of go from one problem to the next.

If you can post a picture of your stator assembly that would be helpful as there are variances between models.

CL70's had the condenser's located at the Ignition coil, not on the stator assembly. Make sure you have the condenser in the line up of electrical currents. If i'm not mistaken the blue wire coming from the stator should go to the condenser and the IC. I can check when i get home the exact way it should go but here's the wiring diagram.

Is your RUN switch in the on position?

What do you mean by " IC " ? The connector that the contact breaker ( points ) go into as well as the negative condensor side of the coil goes into a blue connector. Where does the other side go its just an arrow pointing into the connector? All the wires are dissconnected right now and have access to the five wires going into the engine ( stator plate ). Is there a way to just use these 5 wires to get a spark and then move on from here? My replacement coil has only one wire and not two like the stock one with the condensor attached. Maybe this is my problem? Can you tell me how to wire it up the diagram which I have isnt making sense to me.

I think he means ignition coil, (IC)

IC = Ignition Coil. The Blue wire you're looking at in the wiring diagram comes from the wire harness, (eventually leads into the conglomeration of wires in the headlight bucket via the internal wire harness) I don't think i could guide you through the re-wire via this forum. You need to have the condenser located in the lineup, are you sure the original IC and condenser are bad? If the stator plate doesn't have one then you need to find a stator that can accept one or find the Ignition Coil that has a condenser mounted next to it. Which incidentally i don't think they reproduce. You may be able to add a condenser to the original stator plate. if i remember correctly, there is an indentation where it was mounted on other bikes, but you'll need to make sure it doesn't interfere with the spark advance mechanism. You'll need to post a pic for me to see what's up there. Unfortunately i don't have a pic of my engine with the flywheel removed and i don't quite remember exactly what it looks like inside right now.

The white wires you are talking about may also have a colored sheathing around them that has since degraded or the color of plastic faded. One of those three white wires should be pink and the other yellow, i think the actual white wire is the one with a single connector as opposed to a double or triple connector. Dig around the base and see if you can figure out which is which. I can see if i can take some pics of my bike when i get home and hopefully you'll be able to follow them. Unfortunately, unlike the CT's the CL70 engine connection isn't just a plug and go operation. You need to figure out how to work your way through the wire diagram to get every thing dialed in right.

I had to do a fair amount of rewiring on my harness due to corroded ends and rodent chewings but eventually i got it all together. I'll try and post up a pic tonight if i can...

Here is another version of the cl70 wiring diagram that may be easier to follow. Look closely at how the plugs line up when there are multiple connectors.


i just noticed it didn't really load well enough to see, here is a link to the entire CL70 shop manual with the wiring diagram at the end. You should be able to download the pdf here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7zpr7kHqxL3X1k3b0tsVHN0RVE/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you!!! Here is my layout. The double connector from the stator plate has 2 white wires in it. One goes to the points the other to the right side of the top stator coil. The other double connector from the stator is electricallly isolated from each wire unlike the previous double connector. . One wire is green and red for the neutral saftey switch and the other white goes to right side of the bottom stator coil. The last single connector has a white wire going to the left side of the top stator coil opposite side of the double white connector. Knowing this can I put 6 volts on the points and hot side of the coil and expect to get a spark? I dont know where to put the condensor. Is that in parallel with the points to ground? Thanks for all the help so far!!! Ill get a picture
Wont let me download the manual. If I gave you my e-mail address would you give it a try? chstebbins@verizon.net

Post #385 has pics of Mitsubishi stators some are from a CT70 but at least one is from a CL. Have a look. Might help.
http://lilhonda.com/webboard/f31/too-much-crap-15030/index39.html

Chaz i tried to link you to the google doc, let me know if it works... I can't eamil it it's too big a file

My first reply here just got deleted so i'm not going to go back and rewriting the whole thing. I don't think you can just hook up 6 volts to the hot winding and get spark, i think the whole system needs to be assembled for this to occur. i may be wrong and someone else can chime in if they know how to test the electrical system for spark some other way, but i'm pretty sure you need to get most of it together first. You can check individual components with a volt meter and that should tell you if they'll work together but... you never know until it's all together.

Kirby, thanks for the pics, i enjoyed playing, "which one of these aint like the other" until i found it. Pic 6/10. notice there is no condenser mounted on the stator plate. Is this what your stator looks like Chaz? Notice the little round indentation on the face of the stator plate, this is where the condenser is normally mounted for other Hondas.

looks just like that!!!!

could I trouble you with sending me the link to this e-mail address? My home computer dropped dead. charles.stebbins@us.ngrid.com

I got the link and thank you very much for all the help you are giving me. I took some pics of my stator plate and will send them out. I cant get the entire plate out. I removed the screws, is there a trick to it?