g 1 won't start after rebuild

[jeneo]

recently bought a '85 g1 that was not running due to piston stuck in jug. bought a top end kit and crank seals and rebuilt the engine. i marked position of magneto plate and replaced to the mark after replacing seal. after replacing engine in cart mixed a 50:1 gas mix in a seperate tank and tried to start. engine turns over and tries to start but won't . checked plug for spark which is blue , compression @ 105-110 lbs and gas at carb but won't start. the longer i spin it , it acts like it is "kicking " back on starter like it is not in time and i see a little spurts of gas coming from carb. i don't know whether this cart had starting problems before i got it or not so i don't know what to check now. hoping someone can help with my cart..........thanks

[slonomo]

Are you getting fuel into the engine?

Check fuel pressure by removing the rubber line on the bottom of the carb and watch for fuel squirt while cranking. Make sure to have a can or bowl ready to catch fuel, don't want to start a fire.

If fuel squirts out pretty good, it should be fine to get it running. If it just dribbles out without any pressure then you have a fuel pump issue or a clogged fuel filter.

The carb could be plugged. If it's been sitting and not running I'd bet it has varnish in the jets. Take off carb, disassemble, clean, and reassemble. If you've never done this, find someone who has to help you. Some people use small pipe cleaners to clean out the jets. I just spray the jets with carb cleaner with the little straw attachment. Unless it's really cruddy that should work good.

Also check around for frayed wires, loose connections, disconnected wires. There are a few of them and if one is not right it won't start. Check your grounds and make sure they are tight and not corroded up.

Beyond that it might require someone with experience to fiddle with it.

[DOOmsman]

Does that piston have a window in the intake skirt?

[sho305]

Make sure you are using the "forward" winding and they did not get messed up somehow. You can advance that plate far as it goes (far as I know) because I had to enlarge the holes to get some timing advance on one I modded slightly. You advance the forward coil that retards the reverse.

Wiring issues are very common with these! Never discount that but they are cheap to fix. I would say buy a spark tester they are cheap, the kind you can dial length for spark to jump and that will tell you if it has some power. The grounds on things seem to have the most troubles, and other small wire connections.

Check the reeds and check the intake for any leaks, air leaks will screw up starting badly with 2 strokes and cause popping/backfiring/etc that sound like a timing issue. Bad crank seals let air in/out the crank and do the same thing. If course the only timing is the spark there is no cam. Bad reeds can let intake charge back out carb I've seen G1 that ran and the reeds were not even closed lol, but they should be at rest.

Do you have a plugged muffler? You can unbolt so the muffler is apart from the cylinder a little to test for that. Stick something up the tailpipe they can plug right there.

You may have done some of this just trying to troubleshoot. Can also squirt some gas in the cylinder and see what happens.

[jeneo]

checked fuel pump and it squirts good . i disassembled and cleaned the carb before trying to start engine. i replaced both seals during rebuild. i'll check to see if piston has window in it . should it ???did get it running but it has a miss if you hold it at one speed and if you try and speed it up it wants to stall unless you choke it to bring it back to speed. do i need to try and adjust the timing or is it something else ???????? if it stalls you have to choke and it then it does the "kicking back against the starter" again.

[yamarancher]

Take the muffler off and look in the cylinder , if you see holes in the piston skirt, the piston is backwards, if not try it with the muffler off.

[jeneo]

found what my problem was........previous owner must have replaced starter /generator and had it wired backwards...swapped wires and it fired right off...thanks for all the help and suggestions

[sho305]

Well that would do it, glad you found it.