My bike (fireball head #13) has been on blocks for a long time now, I had taken it apart completely to fix a loose cam spindle (which obviously requires splitting the engine and taking the right side crankcase to a machinist to repair the worn out hole, by inserting a bush.
I was told that the adjustable cam spindles tend to not rest their ends properly in the timing case and high lift cams can tend to make them wear out the hole.
I went ahead with non-adjustable ones after the repair
Also added an aluminum swing arm, Hagons, Lithium battery and boyer brandsen ignition, continental GT rims and tires (on the standard hubs)
I'd put the engine together but left it on the shelf for almost a year. Three months back I finally got the engine fitted in the frame and started.
Then I got busy with other things (including a kidney stone
), and finally spent all of this week finishing up the bike.
I finally got 99% of it done now, everything except the meters, tail light and the blinkers. The bike weighs 154 KG now (without clutch side oil). I can still take off another 2 to 3 KG after my cosmetic mods, which will make this bike one of the lightest Enfields I know of.
I thought, OK, its good enough to test ride around the block and see.
But the damn thing wont start
Fuels fine, air is fine, carb is exactly same as when it started before, spark is solid, battery is full, timing is unchanged from before...
Tappets are not too tight, spin freely. Compression is good...
I spent an hour changing plugs, fiddling with the air and idle screws, disconnecting everything except the ignition coil, cranking away like a madman, but nothing works...
Once or twice it fired for 1 stroke but failed to catch. Once it backfired through the carb.
The only difference between now and the time it started is that then there was no muffler nor air filter when I tested.
What now?
Thanks in advance