B OG RD400C

[M@]

I guess I could rebuild my build build.  Not very remarkable, but it's mine.

Bought in Summer of 2003 or 4.  It seems like I should care, but I don't.


This is 40,000mi ish condition.  I bought it from my college roommate's dad that bought it from an estate sale.  There was a sticky carb and it was hard to open the throttle and he rode it around on one cylinder for about 6 months.  He's also about 250lb.... so... he didn't like it.   I cleaned the carb and rode it for about it year before I had a big end lockup.

As a poor college student I left it be at my parents shed for a couple of years before it was resurrected in my grad school years.

I sent it to Brad at HVC to rebuild the crank and transmission (probably a mistake.  It pops out of 5th occasionally now).

[M@]

So along with getting a new bottom end I decided it would be cool to put banshee reeds in and mill the head.  That didn't go to well and I ended up back with the stock metal reeds, but I did get a doweled head in the process.  I also took the whole thing apart cleaned an replaced a bunch of parts like the brake seals and chain etc.

[M@]

So now it was fully functional with all new ish bits and I rode the tires off that thing... maybe 4 sets....  I put on two sets of pistons over that period as the first set rattled a lot so I sent it to the BEST... don't recall their name, but they rattled a lot too...

At some point I put on some Coffman pipes that I believe are for a 350, but can't say for sure... 

Oh yeah and the power dynamo that thing's a beast.  I had a totally flat battery the other day and I just kicked a few times... boom... going.

It's a 60,000mi now and my room mate's dad tries to buy it off me occasionally.  It's too small for me and for sure too small for him. 

[M@]

and a tag to let the civilians know.

[m in sc]

sweet. still rollin 

[Czakky]

Awesome! What's the cylinder bore at?

[toffee]

not bad at all, its had an eventful past.
nice to see it still going.

[SoCal250]

  60K and still truckin' and looking good

[M@]

I don't recall the bore now.  I guess it's 60 over.  In fact I've considered going to look for some new jugs. 

[M@]

The plot thickens....

Prelude:
I had a carb float problem.  See other thread... http://www.2strokeworld.net/forum/index.php?topic=2409.0   I think it ended up being a bad new needle valve.  I put in the old all metal one and no problems.  On my test ride the front master cylinder wasn't releasing (I think this is an older problem).  So I got a new front brake lever from John at EconomyCycle.com  Big shoutouts to follow.  I also had an older replacement turn signal switch to replace so I did all that at the same time.  So the headlight rats nest was disturbed.

Flashback:
Power-dynamo + Zeel installed.

Plot building:
I complete the rats nest reconstruction (?).  I start up and things seem fine, but as I move over maybe 30 ft it seems to be starving of fuel... this sort of reminds me of some of the "pre-prelude" issues and I assume it's due to low fuel (Now I suspect ignition).  I switch to reserve and carry on... I get about 100 feet and turn back, but about 30ft from the barn it just dies and won't start back.

Main theme:
When I kick the bike over it will only fire one or two revs before shutting down.  I pulled the headlight off and pushed and prodded the rats nest to see if that would stimulate anything, but no luck.  Here's a video of the behavior.  https://youtu.be/BjMv1LaxB54

I'm not sure where to turn next.  It's not really a problem to pull everything apart, but I'd like to know what I'm looking for.

I called and talked to John who was very helpful in jogging my memory prior to the video.  I don't think he would mind me calling again, but I also feel like 4-5 or more years after buying something it's up to me to figure out what's up.  Plus hive-mind etc.  If I can't get any direction I may call him again as I suspect there's something wrong with the generator (the way is slowly died near the end).   It might be grounding?  That sounds like a needle in a haystack problem. 

I'm hoping for an obvious oversight or direction before I rip it all apart.

Thanks for reading this far :)

[pidjones]

Video is marked private.

[M@]

Sorry.  I think I fixed it.  I didn't really want to mess with my work side of the channel, but it's fine.  Let me know if that didn't work.

[Czakky]

Did you check to see if the rotor slipped? Seems fairly common on folks' first try with the Powerdynamo.

[M@]

That was my first guess too.  It's slipped at least once before.  That time I lapped surfaces, heated the rotor, and green loc-tited the surfaces.

I checked (see the timing marks and indicator) and it didn't slip.

[Czakky]

Got it. I couldn't see the vid earlier.