Motorcycle Repair: honda vf500f, auto parts dealer, plug caps

Question
my bike gets power to everything and it turns over but theres no spark   do u know what it is thanks or how to tes components

Answer
The first thing to do is eliminate the easy stuff:
- Make sure the kill switch is on. It probably won't solve your problem, but it wouldn't hurt to spray some contact cleaner into the switch clusters (particularly the one with the kill switch).
- Make sure the wires that go to the coils and ignition units are all plugged in and not corroded. Contact cleaner in the connectors (unplug, spray, plug in) wouldn't hurt here either.
- Make sure the plug caps are screwed firmly into the ends of the wires. I'm not sure if your wires are replaceable, but if they are and you don't know how old they are they probably should be replaced even though they are probably not the source of your trouble. Measure the old ones and get some solid copper core wire that has the same outer diameter from an auto parts dealer (the non-copper resistor stuff is no good for older bikes).

After all that you need to go through the ignition system and check everything according to the shop manual.

If you don't have a shop manual you should get one - your bike is an antique and you will have a hard time finding a shop that will work on it. The sad fact is that a lot of the mechanics working now are too young to remember bikes this old and aren't interested in learning about them so that they can do a proper job since yours may be the only one they see this year. This means that you will have to do most of your own work, and working on a bike without a good shop manual is just not worth the headaches. (My bikes are from the same era - that's why I fix them myself.)

I recommend that you get two manuals - a Factory Shop Manual and a Haynes or Clymer. That way when you don't understand the explanation in one you will probably figure it out when you have read the other too. If you spend some time on Google you might even find a factory manual available for free download.

I also recommend joining a good online forum that specializes in bikes like yours. http://www.hondashadow.net/ looks like a pretty good group.