Engine Trouble Rode on wet pavement yesterday doesn't start tonight

THE DUDE

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Hello im dave . I'm new to this cool informative

site this is the bicycle I built (Eleanor)... Here's the issue I rode it

yesterday on wet pavement and I'm thinking I must have fried the cdi

or possibly the magneto , when I tried to start it the next evening (tonight) it

Would start to turn over but Would sputter and eventually bog out

never achieveing full start up
..
Like it wanted to turn over but wouldn't

go and if I quit peddling

or released the clutch . While its trying to turn over it only seems to

have and little happy spot when squeezing the clutch at about the

quarter of a squeeze if that makes sence ... I'm trying to make this

easy to understand but I'm getting confused typing and re reading it

well I'm about to add the

jackshaft kit to her and figured I'd ask you all before getting into that

whole thing what u all may think or already may know what the issue is

I just don't wanna add the jackshaft if something is seriously wrong

with the engine .... And I possibly would need to replace something or

the engine itself idk I don't want have to reassemble if it's no good I

hope this was easier to read than it was to type on an iPhone hope the rest of ur Sunday is a good one

thanks for any and all help
Dave
 
Sounds like you are from the "tidewater" area, like Saddler bros and Burton bros of NASCAR fame. I still can't understand half of what Ward Burton says, but I'm a big fan. I agree that you need to get that motor sorted out before adding a shift kit. The China girl clutch is perplexing, but will give good service once sorted out. Ignition problems usually are a matter of process of elimination. Only replace one part at the time.
 
only takes a moment to check ohms on the mag coil, but if it is sparking, I'd guess that's OK

first thought that comes to mind is motor full of fuel - just keep trying until it dies itself out and always remember to turn off petcock when parked
 
first thought that comes to mind is motor full of fuel - just keep trying until it dies itself out and always remember to turn off petcock when parked
Easy first thing...
Pull the plug.
Leave the fuel off.
Pedal it up and down the street with the clutch released and blow out anything in the crankcase.
It pedals real easy with no compression.

You might be surprised how many Ills that cures.
 
Easy first thing...
Pull the plug.
Leave the fuel off.
Pedal it up and down the street with the clutch released and blow out anything in the crankcase.
It pedals real easy with no compression.

You might be surprised how many Ills that cures.
Sometimes makes me wonder what I didn't do to fix I a problem I didn't know I had...

I've always had a weird thought that if I left my fuel line on, not that it would fill my engine with gas, but that as the gas in the float would evaporate and leave oil behind, that eventually I'd have a float full of oil and not gas, which would make starting a you know what.

I find that a full bowl of gas left over night with the line off will visibly be filled up again when the line was turned on, so I had expected it to work like that, meanwhile on days I forget to turn the gas off and it's hot out, I find that it takes some extra effort to start the bike, even with a choke, probably because I'm getting gas in my engine, though I doubt it, but more likely that I'm trying to set 2 stroke oil on fire and that just doesn't work great for a cold motor..

Guess my point was maybe he should empty his float bowl, hell, he could have sediment, i found that this nor engine and motor that work great had a funny start up to it, too little throttle and it would sorta try to stall but usually kept itself, but go wot and it would bog down and stall before getting 3/4 of the way open, for the hell of it I pulled the float bowl (I think it was because I thought I wasn't getting fuel flow from a new tank) and found lots of tasty sediment, well a few shots of well aimed carb cleaner did the trick, from that point on the motor didn't suffer that odd startup routine.
 
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symptoms sound like the fuel was not turned off when parked - engine full of fuel is hard to start, but over enough pedalling should begin to run weakly - 10 minutes or so of keeping it going like that should clear it out

look for excessive smoke when it tries to start, as that is the way to tell if it is full of fuel
 
The way I see it is to eliminate what you can't see as a potential problem first.
That is oil and sediment crap in the crankcase, and just blowing the crankcase clean with a little leg work fixes a lot of that.

Pull the plug, turn fuel OFF, pedal fast with the clutch released and the piston moves fast, what blows out the spark hole is the junk you didn't want screwing with your fuel mixture in the crankcase.

You'll still have to find out what caused it like not turning the gas off, but it sure didn't take me long to find this trick!
I don't like pedaling, especially in futility! Hehe ;-}
 
Hey my sister's gas tank had this issue that would make it drain fuel even if the lever was on off, like litteraly I could drive the bike around and never realize it was off because the fuel wasn't even interrupted enough to stall it. Why would it do that?
 
petcock is bad - open it to see where it is leaking inside - often it can be fixed easily
 
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