Who here knows Honda dirt bikes?

I might be getting an older Honda 80 tomorrow. Supposedly it's not getting spark, is there anything specific I should look for?

That looks old enough to have points & condensor ignition. I'd start there. Next I'd check the integrity of the wiring, especially the connections. Was this bike supposed to have a battery? I don't know these Hondas specifically, but some bikes need to have a working battery for the ignition system to work, and some don't.

Some of this generation Hondas can be converted to run without a battery, if that hasn't been done right you're unlikely to get a spark.

I'd check the basics first though - points, condensor, coil and HT wire. Lots of Hondas of this age have coils with molded in wires and the seller might not want to go to the expense of buying a replacement coil.

Clean the grounds.

That will have points. For ultimate upgrade pick up a 90's vintage xr100 electronic set up of fle bay you'll need the flywheel and the three finger pick up plate behind the flywheel, the cdi box and any Honda cdi coil. It's all bolt on and no key or battery needed. Clean the points 1st get it running then decide if you want to spend a little $$.

I had a bunch of these bikes over the years. Most likely the points need cleaning and re-gaped, however I have also found the spark plug will also just fail. The plug might look OK but for some reason no spark.

This is a shot of the inside of the flywheel, the thingy in the center is what opens and closes the points. If a little bit of oxidization forms on this part, the point block will rapidly wear and no spark.

check out this build thread.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/hodgepodge-honda-the-chronicles-of-an-xr75-resurre/101584/page1/

I had one of those. It went through me, my nephew, my eldest daughter, my niece and my youngest daughter before being sold to a friend for his kids to abuse. It's still going. I'll agree that points are a good place to start but ours burned through plugs in a hurry too. It'd give a nice spark when you tried it but it wouldn't even try to start with it installed. Replace the spark plug and it started on the first kick. Other than that we never had any issues.

Wayslow wrote: I had one of those. It went through me, my nephew, my eldest daughter, my niece and my youngest daughter before being sold to a friend for his kids to abuse. It's still going. I'll agree that points are a good place to start but ours burned through plugs in a hurry too. It'd give a nice spark when you tried it but it wouldn't even try to start with it installed. Replace the spark plug and it started on the first kick. Other than that we never had any issues.

Somewhat related: I have a Yamaha Breeze 125 for my kid. It just did this. Spark plug out and grounded = nice spark. But no start. New plug and it fired right up. Of course I wasn't smart enough to try that first so I did a compression test and adjusted the valves before applying the mantra "start with the basics"...