I bought my wife a 1985 Honda Rebel 250. I put a new battery in it and it turns over, but no spark. I checked the obvious stuff (has gas, fuel petcock is turned on). Before I start tearing stuff apart, what would you suggest as a troubleshooting checklist? I'm thinking I need to clean the carbs. If someone can point me to another site or lend me their ideas, I'd appreciate it.
You may want to first determine if it's spark or fuel and go from there. To do that, remove the air-box and filter (so you can see the carb inlets). Get a can of carb-clean/brake-clean/WD-40 (just something that sprays and is combustible). Ready the bike to crank (turn key on, set on/off switch) and spray the stuff as directly as you can at both carb inlets (not too much mind you...it's a 250 twin afterall) and then hit the crank button. If it does at least fire once then you know your issues are fuel related. If it doesn't fire, the test failed (not to likely but I've seen it happen) and/or you have spark issues.
If the bike has been sitting a while, then the fuel has likely contaminated the low-speed or idle jet circuit of the carbs. Since each carb in responsible for feeding 125cc's worth of pure mean, the passages in there are bound to be pretty darn small so they'll be easily gummed up by gasoline as it jellies itself.
You may also want to inspect the wiring harness for evidence of mice. They love to eat wiring harnesses...
Thanks - you may have saved me a few hours and then some.
This is a great old Honda site-wiring diagrams, etc.
http://oldmanhonda.com/MC/MC.html (http://oldmanhonda.com/MC/MC.html)
thanks for that link! that's now bookmarked.
Those are great little bikes - just remember, it's your wife's!
(Off-topic, Mr. littlewiseass, I suspect we have a certain moderator putting on his hacker hat at work here) [leo]