ALCON,
I just wanted to bring something up that I dealt with today and that seems to reinforce troubleshooting basics. You seasoned veterans (I'm not one) can chuckle and murmur "rookie" if you want... I don't mind. My little bike suffered numerous problems that have now been nearly resolved. First, carburation was brought back to life through parts, cleaning and synchronizing of which Steve Reed was valuable in the final stages. Second, charging problems were a result of the rectifier and the AC dynamo. Functionally, once those issues were resolved, the 200 was at about 80%. Last week, when really pushing the throttle in a low gear, it started acting up. I noticed the dynamo strap was loose but wasn't sure if the dyno had actually turned. With some help from Steve (The Dragon) Reed, I went through the timing setup and tried it again. One cylinder wasn't firing at all and I thought that maybe I'd gotten something wrong; however, I swapped spark plugs and found that the problem transferred to the other cylinder. Yes, one of my brand new plugs had failed and after swapping it out, it runs like my wife to a sale (very fast)! I quickly got it on the highway to see how it fared. For the first time, I got it to break 80mph (83 according to speedometer). I think it's a bit faster but it was rush hour here and I had to hit the anchors. I'm assessing it is fully capable of hitting the advertised 85mph... probably better with someone smaller on it.
Anyway, it's become a fun little bike and if anyone wants to expand upon spark plugs failing...
Orion
