So I read this forum when looking for advice on my bike but this is my first post so please be patient. I had my bike (03 Sportster 1200 XL Custom) in the garage to do a tune up before summer riding. It was running before hand as I use it for commuting on a regular basis. I changed the the engine oil, primary oil, and spark plugs.

Afterwards it will not start. The engine will turn over but will not start. I rechecked the spark plug gap (0.040 as it should be), checked battery voltage and connections (both good), After a little more reading (as I read a lot here, I have a manual) I started working my way through checking the other parts of the ignition system. I found I am not getting spark at either cylinder. I checked the spark plug wires and those appeared to be within spec according to the resistances in the manual. When I went to the ignition coil I found one of the primary wires was broken at the boot that connects it to the coil (picture attached). Based on what I can tell from the diagrams in the manual, this wiring is part of the main wiring harness. Does anyone know if there is an easier fix to this aside from replacing that entire harness? I do regular maintenance on my bike but I am pretty sure I am not capable of replacing that on my own. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

The primary winding is the coarse winding of the ignition coil and it's supply voltage (12vdc) is supplied via the ignition points. When the ignition points close 12vdc is supplied to the primary winding in the coil and when the points open the field collapses and induces the secondary voltage in the secondary winding of the coil that finds a ground path through the spark plugs. The point of all this is that if you can just cut into the harness and reconnect/splice where the break occured you should be good to go. I'm assuming that your points are opening and closing properly and that there is good conduction across the closed point surface.

 

The coil appears to be functioning properly based on completing the trouble shooting procedure in the manual. I will splice that connection and see if that fixes my problem. Thanks for the info!