Blood, sweat, tears & beers . . .

Weather strange, we were warmer here in mtns, but rained all day.. no riding, one of the few since November I have not been able to ...

It rained here, too - good day to stay at home and watch TV. I went out and attempted to start the beast but no luck, even with a charged battery. I opened the mixture screw out a little more for a total of about 2 to 2 1/4 turns out. I'm thinking the spark isn't hot enough. I'm ordering a hotter, 35,000 volt coil.
I checked the spark at the plugs and it looks weak.

When I drilled out plug and tuned my Softail, found it 2 turns out from factory. Ended up at 2 1/2 turns out.

That's good to know. I'm in the ballpark with the mixture screw. I just can't figure out why it won't start now. Like Charlie46 says, it can't be that hard. Got me scratching my head.

Could you possibly have a blockage in the fuel line or petcock/tank ?:witsend:

Perhaps with all the kicking and twisting of the throttle and pulling out the choke it is really flood even though the plugs aren't wet. I'd try holding the throttle wide open and kick as long as I could, if and when it fires just back off the throttle but keep it on a higher than normal idle. I have had this trouble in the past and it is a pain to get it dried out in the cylinders. Just wondering would really like to see you get it started again.
If needed put a 10 lb bag of potatoes on your shoulder to give you some extra weight on the starter.

Forecast was calling for rain today, but it cleared out. Got to ride this afternoon after church. Man I love this weather... has been great!

Ha-ha! Well, I kick it thru pretty hard and don't think I need a sack of taters! I wish I could get this figured out. Tattoo wants me to bring it to his shop but my truck is still in the tranny shop - should have had it back weeks ago. Mac is going in this morning to find out what's up with that. She figures if she batts her eyes a few times and plays the damsel in distress we might get some results!
I just ordered some new plug wires from J&P made especially for my year shovelhead. It may just be the last weak link in the ignition system, as they were used when I bought them. The spark has never looked very hot to me, even when I got it running that one time. The tech at J&P said my old wires could be compromised in some way (I did shorten them) or that the coil could be cracked. We'll see . . . .

Try sqirtin starten fluid in each jug then kick to see if will start that way.

The thing is, it's getting plenty of fuel. I don't see how it can be carb related. Points & condensor are new, coil is new - wires are OLD. Worth a try to replace them.

Thanks, HRK. My old analog multimeter bit the dust last year (must have had it 25 years at least) and I never replaced it. I'm heading out to Radio Shack and get a digital one. My plug wires are different lengths. One is 16" long and the short one is about 7" long.
They were both really too long for the bike when I first got them and they flopped all over the place, so I shortened them to a more managable size.

Oops - already got one. Only about $20, not too bad.

Today, I'm going to recheck the entire ignition system. Will take the plugs out, reconnect to the wires, ground plugs and look for spark by manually opening points.
If they are firing, next I'll check and make sure the advance unit is opening the points as I turn it over.
I figure if all that stuff is working like it should, then it's got to be a carb or fuel problem, right? Got this info from a guy on Shovelhead USA. Sounded familiar and then I remembered doing this before - explains how in the manual.

Make sure your not 180 deg.out of timing. Easy mistake to make.

Pretty sure the timing is right. I rode it with the timing I have now. Ran perfectly.

Sorry..Didn't realize it Had been running.

But not for long! Since J&P shipped my new wires yesterday, I think I'll wait til they get here - probably by the end of the week. Then I'll commence all the testing and post the results.

Got to be something simple. Weather here has been a bit chilly & sometimes wet to ride anyway, so I'm not losing any riding time. Hope all of you are getting some riding in . . . .