New to me Strada

[fatnfast]

Glad your making progress Papa and she is a runner once again .
I thought the carbs had already been ultrasonically cleaned or was it just the bodies?

[Papa Lazarou]

I thought the carbs had already been ultrasonically cleaned or was it just the bodies?

so did I. Unfortunately, I didn't buy a finished restoration, as I believed.

[72degrees]

I thought the carbs had already been ultrasonically cleaned or was it just the bodies?

so did I. Unfortunately, I didn't buy a finished restoration, as I believed.

I must confess that I'm a bit like Robert Pirsig. I prefer a bike that "runs fine inside but looks dingy on the surface". To be fair the 'patina' on the 2C/375 is getting to rust eradication levels lately, but I won't be doing a full cosmetic restoration any time soon - it's for riding.

[fatnfast]

I thought the carbs had already been ultrasonically cleaned or was it just the bodies?

so did I. Unfortunately, I didn't buy a finished restoration, as I believed.

I'm guessing the seller is not interested anymore?

[Papa Lazarou]

The seller sold in good faith, I believe.

New idle and main jets have helped but still not sorted-I reckon it was around 80MPH today. Still a bit of a difficult starter. I'll replace the atomisers tomorrow and give it new needles. It's still very "tappety" so I need to check clearances as well.

[Papa Lazarou]

New needles and atomisers installed. Had fun getting the cables back in until I realised they went outside the spring, not inside. Silly me. Put a blob of Hammerite on the cable adjusters before I took the slides out, so as not to ruin the balancing of the carbs.

No time to adjust the tappets today. Tomorrow or Saturday.

[Papa Lazarou]

Tappets. The front rockers were so loose m y feeler gauge wouldn't measure them. The rear were over tight. The TDC marks on the flywheel were also out, so I measured top dead centre using a large Allen key shoved down the spark plug holes.
Installed new atomisers and needles. With the new mains and idle jets, this (I pray) will sort it.

[fatnfast]

Great work Papa, she should be running sweetly soon .

[Papa Lazarou]

Fired up, then stopped. Then would not start.

[fatnfast]

Hmm, that's not good. The bike has obviously just had a cosmetic make over. I think I would be pretty pi##ed of as well.
I'm sure as it was a fellow forum member they will do the right thing and provide some assistance towards what this has cost you.

Take a day off, then reset everything as per the manual. You can do it!

[George 350]

Hi Papa.
Whereabouts in the country are you? Perhaps there is another owner near you who can help? For what it is worth, I live in Northampton.
George.

[MickeyMoto]

Tappets. The front rockers were so loose my feeler gauge wouldn't measure them. The rear were over tight. The TDC marks on the flywheel were also out, so I measured top dead centre using a large Allen key shoved down the spark plug holes.

Alarm bells ringing... have you rechecked cam and ignition timing?

[Ming]

...Alarm bells ringing... have you rechecked cam and ignition timing?

Maybe the key is sheared or missing so that the flywheel is not correctly positioned?

[Papa Lazarou]

Thanks all. I'll leave the thing today.

I paid my local mechanic to check the ignition and timing and balance the carbs, as I struggled to get the NLM stuff to work once I discovered the original transducers were ill. Turned out that the diodes in the NLM ignition had been wired up the wrong way.

I've replaced carb jets, gapped tappets etc.

Time to do it all again.

I'm in Sussex, near Brighton.

[72degrees]

Reading back through the threads about this machine being brought back to life it seems there might be something slightly odd about the rotor. How far out were the TDC marks? As MickeyMoto and Ming say, back to basics. Cam timing was one of the things that gave me concern when completely rebuilding the 350 motor for the FE project - particularly with a reground cam, but with the assistance of posts on here it was very straightforward. You might also consider rigging up a degree wheel and pointer as a sanity check.

Firing but then stopping and not restarting sounds possibly like ignition again to me though. Time to check for a spark again - with minimum connections to eliminate intermittent wiring faults.

Nil desperandum, If all else fails I could lend you set of known good transducers (or NLM module) and OEM pickup. I won't be needing them again for a couple of months while my hand heals but I should be able to twiddle spanners well enough to take them off.

.