TOPIC:

Looking at my initial post, I forgot to mention that I did soak the carb bodies in a can of Berryman Chem-Dip before they went in the ultrasonic cleaner. They were totally disassembled, with the exception of the throttle and choke shafts. After soaking and ultrasonic cleaning, I blew air and Brakleen through all the internal passages.

What gets me is how the bike ran better before I did all this. It didn't run great, but it was rideable, and now it's not. There's got to be something simple that I'm missing.

All the suggestions are appreciated. I may have a chance to tear it apart again later today. I'm planning to make or find some little rubber plugs to direct air/spray through the transfer ports of the pilot passage, to make sure they aren't clogged with something.

OK, I disassembled the carbs again, and confirmed that all passages and jets are clear. Pretty sure at this point that the carbs are not the problem.

I tested the coil, and found two problems. As I said earlier, someone swapped the electronic ignition over from a later 440, but it appears (based on resistance testing) that they continued using the coil for the original points ignition. The points coil has a primary resistance of 3.2-4.8 ohms, while the EI coil should be 1.8-2.8 ohms. Won't keep it from running, but probably not realizing the full added benefits of then electronic ignition.

The second, and probably what's causing my immediate issue, is that the spark plug cap on the left cylinder (which doesn't want to fire) seems to have an intermittent high resistance... about 2m ohms instead of the 5k ohms it should be. That, combined with having the wrong coil, is probably causing spark to break down in the left cylinder.

Speaking of that... I'm assuming this bike should have 5k resistor caps? That's what's on there now, but the whole bike has been pretty worked over by previous owners, and I don't know what has or hasn't been changed.

Thanks for all the help,
Andy

I read an article last year from a carburetor rebuilder saying that he only trusted oem rebuild kits.
I'll post the link below.
If you still have the old oem parts from the carbs, you may try cleaning those and re-installing them or track down the oem parts (like the bent idle needle).
O-rings are the exception. You have to use the new ones for that.

www.motorcycleproject.com/text/carb_kits.html
www.motorcycleproject.com/text/carb_rebuild_parts.html
www.motorcycleproject.com/text/needle_jet.html

Andy FitzGibbon wrote:
Speaking of that... I'm assuming this bike should have 5k resistor caps? That's what's on there now, but the whole bike has been pretty worked over by previous owners, and I don't know what has or hasn't been changed.
Andy

Actually, you do not need resistors anywhere in the secondary loop unless you worry about other people's AM radio reception.. If you want resistors, be sure not to double up on them. Resistor caps are fine as long as you do not have resistor plugs or resistor wires.
You can use resistor plugs as long as you do not use resistor wires or caps.
Same for the wires.

I can sympathize with that article, having thrown several aftermarket carb kits in the trash over the years for the same reasons.

The only hard parts that came with the K&L kits I used were the idle screw and the float needle... the rest was o-rings. So far, the float needles and o-rings all seem to be sealing well. I saved all the original parts, and if I'm unable to get it to run once I get the ignition problems sorted I'll try swapping the old idle screws back in. New idle screws are NLA from Kawasaki, unfortunately, along with float bowl o-rings.

TexasKZ wrote: Actually, you do not need resistors anywhere in the secondary loop unless you worry about other people's AM radio reception.. If you want resistors, be sure not to double up on them. Resistor caps are fine as long as you do not have resistor plugs or resistor wires.
You can use resistor plugs as long as you do not use resistor wires or caps.
Same for the wires.

Thanks, I figured that would be the case. I've heard running without resistance can also potentially interfere with electronic ignition, so I went ahead and ordered new 5k caps. Didn't feel that now was a good time to introduce another variable.

Thanks to everyone for the replies... it's all very helpful.