Project The Neglected Honda project...

Protection. Learned my lesson from last time.



Timing was annoying. Did it 6 or 7 times, the manual doesn't specify number of pins just to line up the marks and it was pretty frustrating. A lot harder than the fizzer believe it or not!! You can see from these two photos the difference one tooth makes:



This is what I settled on, that's where it is now. The camera angle makes it look a bit weird as the engine is also on a slight angle. Hope I'm right. Afterwards is the lobe shot I double checked to make sure both of the lobes were basically a mirror image. Checked the clearances and 3/4 were OK. One of the exhaust valves was 0.12 instead of 0.15 which is frankly really annoying as I took an extra 0.03 off that one so I didn't think I would have an issue. I will run with it for now because I'm just so damn sick of disassembling the cams.



New battery also arrived today too so getting close to start-up. I'll try and take a better pic of the timing but am interested in thoughts, if I'm out better to know now I guess. I spent a good two hours moving each cam back and forth a tooth (you can see my texta marks) then cycling the crank round a few times to check the line up when back at TDC.

 

Nah, believe it or not I was 500ml of oil short!! the saga continues, I'll keep you posted because tonight is the night

 

No dice yet. Still backfiring, close to starting but no go yet. Drained the battery cranking. It cycles a bit faster at points like it wants to start but not prolonged enough to go. The last thing on my list is the spark plug, if it's not that then I need to find a way for a compression test because that's the only other thing I can think of. By all rights it should be going, but have heard these are a bit of a beast to start cold.

I also wonder if there is something going weird with the oil circuit, it's air cooled and I did drain the lines. Should have cycled back through with all the cranking you'd think. Hopefully some sort of oil pressure drop isn't stopping her from going...?

 

It pops pretty loudly out the exhaust. Not all the time just every few cycles on and off. Bit like a balloon popping.

 

Couple more hours of mucking around - definitely has spark. I think the timing is OK. Plug is wet and it is popping so it's getting fuel. The only thing that remains is compression... starting to think there is a ring problem. Not the end of the world, was hoping not to have to do that but I can't think of anything else stopping this thing from going.

 

I'll try my compression test kit again, it's coming up with 30-40 psi which is way too low but I don't trust the reading as it is extremely difficult to attach the kit and I suspect it may be leaking pressure (from the kit itself). I'll try it again and see if oil makes a significant difference. A set of rings isn't going to be a massive cost but I want to be sure before I dig much deeper. I also can't see how compression would be an issue in such a low KM bike either, UNLESS the previous dude overheated it somehow...

I'll check the carby again, I checked emulsion before and all the jets and apart from the blocked one it was pretty clean in there. Perhaps some of the vacuum/vent hoses are wrong though, I trusted how it was put together when I got it. The plug does come out wet though so I think it's getting fuel.

I tested again for spark and it seems good. Whether it is "weak" spark or "strong" I don't know, the plug looks pretty new and it's a clear blue. I will look for another plug just to be certain, a small investment for peace of mind.

Fuel is fresh too, so that wouldn't be the issue.

@Phil it's really hard to hear in the video it but when I pulled the choke on it makes a "gloop gloop" type sound and the engine at points in the cranking spins a bit faster. I listened to a youtube video of how these bikes sound when started, it's pretty much instant so there must be something that is amiss.

The other thing I noticed when I tried to do a basic push start is that it is hard to push in first gear but in second gear it isn't too hard to push with the clutch released which I find completely strange. Maybe being a smaller engine/single cylinder or something...? The clutch also feels a bit weird, I don't think that should stop it from starting but I'm not convinced that's 100% right either.

 

Do you mean an auto decompressing cam? If so, no.

Or something on the kit? There is a button on the kit that releases the pressure.

 

Hmm... that would be attached to the cam, right? This one doesn't have anything on the cams, so if it's different to the photos then I wouldn't have it. I don't recall any mechanism which will shut the valves apart from the lobes themselves.

It's a very "bare bones" sort of bike.

 

Not 100% certain the timing is correct. I can give it another go though.