After the restoration: 14400-mile service [page 4]
Tuesday, Apr 3, 2007 [13985 miles]
Things seemed better when I put the previous advance unit back on the bike, but it needs to be re-timed. Today I started by setting the static timing. The first two images show the points just after they open and the second just before they opened. The third image (slightly enhanced) shows the S mark in the center of the window at the closed-to-open transition.
The tach/timer is telling me that the bike was running quite nice just 23 engine hours ago. I'd like to get it back that way. I re-connected the coil wire to the points and tried kicking it over. I've still problems.
I can get the bike started with some effort. While it runs it sounds fine. But it wont keep running. It stops for no apparent reason. Fuel? Spark? Don't know, yet. It did run long enough to check the timing which looked OK at a slightly elevated idle, so I don't think that is the problem. I changed the condensor, not because I thought it was a problem (yet) but because I can see that 1/2 or more of the strands in the lead are broken. I'll repair that, later. Next up is to verify good spark. I'm wishing I had my spare coil in hand right now! It's out on loan.
Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007 [13985 miles]
I was kicking over the bike when my neighbor, Major WWWobble, came by and stopped to lend moral support and ideas. There is spark, but the spark on the left was maybe a bit week. I readjusted the connection between left spark plug lead and coil. While the plugs were out we checked the compression. 165 on the left, 170 on the right. I pulled the bottom half of the fuel petcock and cleaned its internal filter of the tiniest bit of debris. The bike wants to start, and eventually does, but doesn't start as easy as it should.
Earlied I'd checked the throttle cables and found the one on the right a bit too tight. I did a quick adjustment with the bike running to get them close. I'll need to get the bike up to operating temperature before I do any final carb adjustments.
The bike starts, eventually. Once started it is actually running OK, now. The timing seems to be fine at idle and off idle. I did not check to see if the F mark was reached at higher RPM. I suspect that my starting problem is that the idle circuit is still a touch too rich. I'll ride it to Darryl's tech day for more work, Saturday. In the meanwhile I'll charge the battery.
Note: I was sick and did not make it to the tech day. I thought it best to keep my germs to myself instead of sharing.