Kawasaki Bayou no spark

[Guest]

Hey all, new to the forum! I just bought a 1998 Kawasaki bayou 300, 4x4 not running. Initially I found no spark. Ended up playing with the plug wire (made sure plug top and wiring was touching) and got spark yesterday and the quad fired up off ether. Come to work on it today and now no spark again. Before I got spark and now today if I touch the plug after cranking I get shocked, and it will spark after I release the starter button. I was jumping the quad with a freshly charged car battery that has 12v while cranking. Cleaned out the kill switch and ignition button. All looks good. Purchased new plugs. They're are a lot of wires cut/ disconnected. But shouldn't matter if I got spark without them connected... 

[Guest]

Does not let me edit my post, 1989 for the quad year!

[Gwbarm]

20 hours ago, morks said:

I was jumping the quad with a freshly charged car battery that has 12v while cranking.

Do you have a good battery in it, needs that to power everything to spark. So are you saying its sparking all the time and when you push the start button it doesnt spark. I would check out the CDI connections and get a manual to chase down wiring problems, a lot of differnt circuits are involved in the starting procedure.

[Guest]

I am jumping it from a freshly charged car battery. It doesn't spark until I let off the ignition button. Where can I find a diagram online? I have been looking for one. Was checking the ignition coil today and primary windings read okay, secondary read okay without the boot, however I get nothing with the boot... 

[Gwbarm]

There should be one here!

 

SM-1989-2006 Kawasaki Bayou 300 Repair Manual.pdf

[Guest]

That is big time! Time to rip this thing apart now haha!

[Guest]

Would you be able to send the service manual? The repair one does not include wiring. I am unable to download without 10 posts. Thanks!

[Gwbarm]

There is one here in section 14

 

Bayou 4x4 Electrics.pdf

[Guest]

Awesome thanks! Just got it to fire. Ripped it all up and found some chaffed wires, and I tried bypassing the key, and it worked. Weird because nothing seemed wrong with the key. It was all clean and worked as it should, and the chaffed wire wasn't too bad. But she runs! Going to clean the carb good, add a few things, should be a cheap running quad!

[Gwbarm]

Sounds good glad you got it running.

[Buterban]

On 9/22/2025 at 7:10 PM, Guest said:

Awesome thanks! Just got it to fire. Ripped it all up and found some chaffed wires, and I tried bypassing the key, and it worked. Weird because nothing seemed wrong with the key. It was all clean and worked as it should, and the chaffed wire wasn't too bad. But she runs! Going to clean the carb good, add a few things, should be a cheap running quad!

What wires where they?