Right Cylinder Timing

[5twins]

You cleaned and lubed the advance rod but what about the bushings in the ends of the cam? They have grooves in them made to hold grease and that keeps the rod lubed for a long time .....

About every 5 years or so, you'll want to clean any remnants of old grease out and pack them full again. The shop manual recommends a grease with moly in it. I use VW CV joint grease because it has a very high moly content .....

 

[ckahleer]

To test if the springs are the problem, you may be able to remove then and replace with plastic ties. this should hold the weights at full retard while you do an idle speed timing check.

 

[LikeyMeYommy]

OK, orange and gray wires are connected properly at the points, but which coils do their other ends connect to? Also, then which cylinder does each plug wire run to? It's possible to switch things up at the coil connections, or by which cylinder a coil's plug wire runs to.

If you timing was 180° off, I don't think the bike would even start.

You nailed it. I'm not going to even try to guess why PO did this....

To correct, should be able to switch the wires back and then remove the advance weights from the tabs in the disc, rotate shaft and disc 180, insert advance weights back into the disc, good to go???

 

[5twins]

Well, maybe, but it's possible the little advance disc is mounted 180° off on the end of the advance rod. See the 1st pic in post #9. The advance disc and the points cam both have a locating pin to lock them onto the advance rod. Those pins have to face in the same direction. The pin hole in the advance end of the rod goes all the way through so it's possible to stick the pin in either side. One position is correct (aligned with the points cam pin), the other will throw the timing off 180°. So, you may need to pull the little advance disc off the rod and re-position it correctly.

 

[LikeyMeYommy]

Just pulled the rod out completely and both pins are facing the same direction.

I guess this makes sense. As-is, the wiring to the coils is flip-flopped and my timing is 180° off. As mentioned, I guess that’s the only way it would be able to run in its current state

So since the pins on both ends are pointing in the same direction, if I wanted to switch the wiring so that it is proper to the coils (gray to Right and orange to Left), I would also rotate the points cam, advance rod, and advanced disc (entire assembly) 180 and put the weights back into the correct tabs in the advance disc.

Do I have to worry about changing any condenser wiring?

 

[Jim]

Do I have to worry about changing any condenser wiring?

No, the condensers are identical. Either will work in either side.

 

[5twins]

Install the advance rod so the locating pins on each end align. Then make sure the slash mark on the little advance disc aligns with the slash mark on the advance backing plate (yellow arrows in the 2nd pic in post #9).