Saddest Bunny

I worked all weekend to finish the Sportster build, but it’s not working.

I made a few mistakes. I forgot to put in oil seals so had to take the barrels and heads off again. For some reason the one of the throttle cables doesn’t quite fit. It’s the return cable so just the pull cable should be sufficient for starting it up. Then I spent hours trying to set up the simplest thing with the new ignition device. The instructions say front cylinder, TDC, compression stroke, then just rotate the unit slightly until the light goes out. At the exact point the light goes out, screw the unit into place. Easy.

I spent hours. It’s not made any easier by Harley’s stone age attitude. To turn the engine over you have to put the bike into gear, take the pistons out, jack up the arse end, and rotate the wheel by hand.

Anyway, I removed the inspection cover and turned it over, but the ignition unit just wouldn’t light up. I moved it as far as it would go, wriggled it, and pulled it out a bit. Then the light came on but it was shorting. I was devastated. An electrical problem on a brand new unit. After resetting the timing mark 3 times, and the unit, I still couldn’t get it to light up. I came in (to get wifi reception for my ‘phone) and googled loads of pages. One of the threads mentioned that it might be TDC on the exhaust stroke. I went back and tried again. I got lights and set it in a matter of minutes. Dammit!

Anyway, it’s fully rebuilt, it turns over, it’s got spark. That’s not nothing. But it won’t fire. Even spraying Easy Start directly into the engine.

Actually, that was yesterday. I didn’t take a picture today, but the exhausts are back on, tank and seat. It looks like a bike.

The problem is I don’t understand where to go from here. It has a brand new Ultima ignition unit so that should be my ignition timing sorted. The valve timing is Harley primitive. There are a bunch of cogs. If you line them up, dot to line, your valve timing is set.

So it’s not that. I sprayed Easy Start into the barrels, so it’s not fuel.

It’s just back firing and firing out of the carb. Which is what it was doing before I stripped it.

I’ve just been looking. There are a bunch of simple things to check out. The HT leads from the coil are push on. They could be loose. They are the original leads, they could be shot. I got fresh leads in the ignition kit. I could try them instead. I’ll make sure the battery is 100% charged. I’ll double, triple check the wiring is the right lead to the right terminal on the coil.

As the ideas are occurring to me I’m checking out the videos and cross referencing them against pictures I took. Wiring to the coil, pink on the left, two whites to the centre, blue to the right. Check.

“I had to fit the new HT lead after all, as the stock one won’t reach from the right hand side of the the coil to the front cylinder.”

Wait.

WHAT!?

MOTHERFUCKER!

The leads are the wrong way around on the new ignition system. That explains everything. No wonder it won’t start and explodes back out of the carb. The spark is going off as the exhaust valve is open. I’ve been out to the shed and physically checked. I’ve got it as standard, right hand HT lead to back pot.

I am buzzing right now. I was writing this to work through some of the despair and confusion so I could try and calm my brain enough to sleep tonight. Now I need to come down from this buzz.

Wow. What a turn around. As I’m actually blogging. I’ve spent hours watching videos, reading threads, reading the manual, trying to get my head around what it could possibly be.

Back in the game, bitches!

Later,

Buck.