SPARK!

Last night at work, I made a list of everything that I could think of to check.  This morning, while going through that list, I was about to bypass the diode unit with a ground wire when I found a very important mistake.  I had (days earlier) removed the ground jumper and had not installed the diode unit!!

After installing the jumper, the bike fired right up.  A very nice feeling, since it had been down all of February and Spring is almost here (the calendar says that its Spring but it snowed last night and is 25 degrees now).  I installed the diode unit, gas tank and plastic and took it for a ride to the local forest preserve.

It appears as though the pickup coil on the old stator cover was the culprit.