Wits end and feeling stuiped becouse of a Triumph

It's my first build and I 'm proud of it but its going to be pushed off the bench soon. It's a 71 650 single carb motor. It has points, Sparx reg/ rec, with a 12v battery wired in to run the head and taillights.

It ran fine up to a month ago. Took it out for a ride made it down the street and it died. Battery was dead and a 20-amp fuse was blown. Charged the battery and replaced the fuse, kicked the bike a few times and nothing. Fuse was blown and the next battery was dead again.

Replaced the battery, fuse and turned the ignition on all good. Turned the head light on and fuse pops. I went over all the wiring in the bucket checking connector's etc. Found some things loose and fixed.
Back to the begining, new fuse good battery, key on good, headlight and tail/ break light working. Bike still won't turn over. Replaced the spark plugs, checked the wiring again and can fing no breaks.

This leaves the stator, regulator, coils and condensers. How do you know if they're bad if the bike won't run? Could I have blown one or all of these? If testing is replaceing with new, is one more likely to go before the others?

Any thoughts would be helpful... also postes on JJ
Mike

Run down to Autozone or Harbor Freight or whatever and pick up a cheap multimeter. You can get one for $10-15 and without it, all you can do is guess and throw new parts on.

To test coils, check for resistance across the primary windings and secondary windings.

With fuses, you need to pull each fuse out and check the resistance across it. Don't trust your eyes. I JUST dealt with this last week. Fuse looked good, but it was partially blown in the plastic portion.

I gotta run, but I'll check back later.

you don't even need a stator or a rotor to run an engine, you can run a engine off of a battery only.
so you running problem is not in the charging system.
check you coils and see if the "hot" wire is hot.

Originally Posted by Torch

you don't even need a stator or a rotor to run an engine, you can run a engine off of a battery only.
so you running problem is not in the charging system.
check you coils and see if the "hot" wire is hot.

Unless something in the charging system is totally FUBAR, and has a nasty short. That would actually explain the battery and fuses blowing.

then make it easy,... cut the wire from the Sparx charge box and fire it up.
The solid state charge boxes fail sometimes but they seldom dead short to ground.

you have two separate points, coils, and condensers, a points system is tough as hell and the odds of both of them being blown are slim,

pull the plugs out and hold them down on the head and kick it over, see if you have spark or not before you go tearing into everything. you might have a carb problem and not an ignition problem.

Thanks to everyone for the help!
Did some checking with a meter... resistance across the primary and secondary windings on one coil, left side nothing. AC out put on the stator with a strong kick,. Found two more wire shielding cracks on the coil jumper underneath the gas tank. Not sure how to test condensers, but no resistance from tab on top of can to the threaded post.
No spark on ether side (plug held to head and kicking) if the left coil is bad will that keep the right side from sparking?
Mike MRB