Ok guys, I'm back again with another update. I'll just put this right here in the beginning
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She's alive!
(Disclaimer: The wiring is not yet tucked and protected, we simply mocked it up for a dry run to see if I had it all correct and boy was it confusing lol.)
I was able to get the bike down to Rhode Island to the garage of Wes from Counterbalance Cycles. Awesome dude with a ton of mechanical know-how.
After getting the clutch basket reinstalled (never figured out what was causing the problem btw, I took the clutch plate off and put it back on and there was no play between the plates anymore. Alignment hole was matched up before and after, so who knows but hey it's fixed!), we focused our attention on the left side of the motor. Wes noticed pretty quickly that with my blacksmith billy modified worm gear, the black stud coming out from the case could be turned to adjust the clutch. After a few turns out, the case sat flush against the motor and both covers were now on and ready to rock n roll.
We moved on to the wiring, hooking it up exactly as shown in this diagram.
We began by testing for spark, which we got. But here's where things got VERY strange. After getting spark we tried to kick it over, no luck. We tested again for spark and were getting none. Wondering if it could be a capacitor issue (as I've read many of those posts on here) we hooked it up to a battery and still none. Both sides of the coil were reading 14 volts with the battery connected, as was the ignition switch, fuse block etc. There was no reason why we shouldn't be getting spark. I tried reversing the red and green wires going to the coil and the spark came back. The whole thing was super touchy and didn't make much sense. I ended up switching those wires back afterwards and got it to fire that way too, so I guess it truly doesn't matter which way they're arranged. I will say though that we didn't try hooking it back up to the capacitor once we got it running, so I'm hoping that I can still run it without a battery in the future.
That said, with the engine running we weren't able to get a reading with the timing light regardless of which way those wires were hooked to the coil. That was a bummer because I had read that if you couldn't get a reading, reversing those wires is usually the fix. Since it didn't work in this case, we're stuck without being able to time the engine properly so any advice in that department would be helpful.
I still need to adjust the valve clearances and the carburetor manifold to get the float level, but hearing the engine come to life after the full rebuilt felt absolutely amazing. It really goes to show you that just about anybody can rebuild a motor, even me! Exciting to bring you more progress pics and videos, feel free to chime in with any suggestions on the timing aspect.