there seem to be an absurd amount of posts on this site that cover strikingly similar issues to what i've encountered on my new bike, but i'm new to the art of motorcycle repair, and frankly i'm not sure where to begin.
i have to admit that i had very little idea of what i was getting into when i bought my dirt cheap but shiny old 1982 kz440 ltd (A3). however, i've been reading through these forums and I've downloaded 2 different repair manuals which i believe together manage to cover MOST of the eccentricities of the 81-83 models.. of course it took me weeks of puzzling over the diagrams in the factory manual to realize that these differences were numerous and also rather unimportant (unless you're trying to find a clutch cover and you get the wrong one 5 times in a row...).
My problems began when i purchased the bike. it had no battery, and the side cover was off (he said it was cracked), so i had to buy a new one. when i finally got the right one and installed it, i realized that the pickup coil and the cam on the advancer look like they've been hit with a hammer... maybe he dropped the bike and busted the timing cover smashing everything inside. anyway... i installed everything, crossed my fingers and pressed the little black button. much to my relief, the starter motor kicked on and the engine turned over. but no spark.
oh, and i forgot to mention i did a quick carb checkup before turning it over. i inspected the diaphragms and cleaned the junk out of the float bowls (this is when i noticed the tank was rusty). i also replaced the plugs.
anyways, i noticed the pickup coil was bent out of the path of the cam on the timing advancer, so i bent it back down and voila! i had spark, albeit a weak one. so i turned it over again and it started up VERY quickly.
it seemed to be idling OK at about 1100 rpms with the choke on, but it was making an awful ping/knock/clicking noise seemingly on every stroke. i turned it off, pulled the plugs and the right one was black as sin. i figured at this point i ought to do a compression test or a leakdown test, but i don't have that kind of equipment handy. i did some more inspecting and noticed my carb boots are cracked, and the foam that goes between the filter box and the larger air box is all worn away, so air can get in-between. i wanted to check for leaks so i started it up again. this time i let it run for a while to see if anything changed when it warmed up.
again, i should let you know that i'm very new to all of this. i'm not exactly sure of the proper procedure for starting and warming a bike. i had the choke on all the way when i started it, it idled fine for a while, i sprayed wd40 around the carb boots with no change in idle, and when the rpms started to drop off i let the choke off slowly. when i did that the rpms raced up to 4000 and held there for a minute, then jumped back down and died. this sounds like an air leak to me, but could it be caused by the same thing that's causing the fouled plug?
questions:
1.) should i do the compression test first to figure out the pinging/plug fouling issue, or could that all be related to the possible air leak? or could it maybe have to do with the beat up timing advancer? the advancer itself looks ok, but the largest part of the cam does not line up with the magnet when the timing plate lines up with the T mark.. and it looks like someone attacked it with a pair of pliers. could the timing be off and causing the noise?
2.) is it safe to ground out the right plug wire and run on only the left to see if the noise is in fact coming from the right cylinder?
3.) should i give up and take it to a shop?
4.) should i set fire to it and bathe in the ashes?
5.) should i find a new hobby?
help...
