Hoping i can get a little advice on a timing issue...

Im really new to KZs, new to motorcycles, and on a car, i could correct this... but i could use a hand on this one. 

I picked uo a 1982 KZ440 LTD the other day, and i am trying to get it running. Guy said it ran when he bought it in 2022, and then it sat 8n his barn. I deep cleaned the carbs and it is getting gas, but it is way out of time. It has a breakerless ignition on it which seems to have zero adjustment. Tested with a timing light, it is firing here:


which looks to be maybe 30 degrees  advanced? It wont start, but intermittently, it will try to fire, but it fires so early that it slams the engine rotation to a halt.

I thought that maybe the timing advance had slipped or been installed incorrectly, but the not is placed correctly over the pin. I realized you can flip the sleeve with the trigger lobe 180 (is that normal?) But obviously that put it  even further out.

I know that the actual actual valve timing can be off from the crank, but that shouldnt be relevant here, because the ignition is timed by the crank, and whatever the valves are doing,  the pkygs should be firing on the F, right?  

Anyway... im kind of at a loss. Other than swapping in a different/known good advanced and sensor,  or trying the points off of my 81... not sure where to go next. 

Thanks in advance.

Your trigger rotor is 180 degrees out.
It's point is aiming at 5 o'clock.
It needs to be aiming at 11 o'clock.
flip it over. i mean rotate it.
The point of the rotor needs to be aiming close to the double lines mark

 





at idle the "F" mark should line up with the mark in the red circle
at 4000 rpm the mark in the red circle should be between the 2 lines to the left of the 'F" mark



 



 

Ok, thank you! That is a good step in the right direction. I could only find examples of points ignition in my manual, but your photo makes it clear... i had tried flipping the rotor, but it looked like the timing was further out... i can put it on the right way and then look at where im at.... see if the trigger is sitting right... i do see how the lobe should should sit, and it make sense when it should be firing based on the position... so yeah, that puts me a long way toward getting this sorted out.

www.kz400.com/Workshop%20manual%20bilder...Service%20Manual.pdf

courtesy of kz400.com

pg 271

Well, I fixed the rotor to the correct orientation, but still no dice. I checked the cam alignment and it was good. Checked the valve lash, good. 

At a loss for what to do next, installed a known good points ignition and coil... and now it runs. (Somewhat... i still have carb issues....)

I think  i will, at some point, order a new advancer and  pickup  to see if i can get the breakerless ignition working... but for now, points are working... points easy... i will use them to get  a running bike and go from there. 

That may have been the reason the bike was parked..
The previous owner may have had an issue with the ignition system.

My kz440 had an issue with the igntion pickup failing when the bike got hot.

I would keep the points on it for now and figure out the carb issue.
After that you can decide if you want to go with the electronic or stay with the points.

Yeah, quite possibly.  I am thinking that is is an issue with the pickup or the rotor because it looks like they were contacting eachother at some point... the rotor is visibly worn, like it was scraping the pickup. I was able to get a signal from it, so I initially thought it was ok... but maybe the deformation caused too much distortion in the signal, making it fir early or making it unstable.... or maybe the pickup itself was damaged from the contact and was just sending a bad signal.

For now, I will just try to figure out the carbs... but thats an issue for a different forum, lol