1983 185s randomly lost spark

[Jkoht]

Hello all I'm new here from the great north woods of MN! I'll jump right into my issue here. I'm the third owner of a very well taken care of 1983 185s. Up until now it has run flawlessly. I had it out last weekend and it ran fine at 10 pm, but when I tried starting it at 9 am it wouldn't start. I found that the plug was wet but not sparking. The first thing I did was buy a new plug to no avail. So then I ordered a new cdi and ignition coil with spark plug wire. Unfortunately the cdi didn't come in before I came up to the cabin. I replaced the ignition coil with the new one and still no spark. Looking around at the wiring harness I saw no rubs or wears in any wires. I went into the headlight and didn't see anything that looked bad with the connections in there. The kill switch appears to be in working order with nice shiny copper contact points (I assume it kills the engine by creating a direct short?). I opened the cover on the left side that said cdi and found what I assume to be the magneto? Looked like spinning magnets free of corrosion, but there was a very thin amount of oil on the bottom edge that I wiped off. I pulled the recoil off because I saw wires going in there and without pulling that clutch out I can see a shiny copper bar on the right side that the wires look like they're going into or a part of. So right now I'm left with two options as I see it. First is the new cdi box that is sitting in my mabox at home, and second I watched a video that mentioned the ground wire on the ignition coil, which I just changed, could be the culperate. I should also mention that when I pull the engine over the light lights up for a brief second. Any help here would be appreciated.

[125Mmadness]

Sounds like your ignition stator under the flywheel is bad.

[Jkoht]

Sounds like your ignition stator under the flywheel is bad.

Can that part just die without any cause? Pardon my ignorance but I'm slowly learning engine parts, is the flywheel the part under the metal cdi cover? If so how do I get to it to determine if it's good or bad?

[125Mmadness]

Yeah they go bad over time. They flywheel is the thing behind the pullstart cover buy a $15 puller to get it off, and there is your stator. you can test the stator without pulling the flywheel, however. Get a Multimeter and set it to ohms. put one lead of the multimeter to the singular red wire that comes out behind the pullstart put the other to a groud. You have to be in the 200-400 ohm range for it to be good.

[mendoAu]

There are a bunch of good posts about CDI's and I think that a quick trip home to the mailbox might solve your problem.

[Jkoht]

The new cdi didn't help the issue. So now I'm left at stator. I have one other question. When it stopped sparking I was pulling on the recoil obviously trying to start it. The rope snapped and I had to rewind the recoil at a later date. I don't know enough about timing but is it possible I pulled it out timing alignment and now it won't spark because it's in a backwards or whatever firing sequence? When the rope pulled out it felt weird like the flywheel still turned a quarter turn or so.