82 xj750 maxim issues

Alright, so this is my 2nd maxim xj750 already did up one and then got in financial trouble and sold it, Now I picked up another one 2 years later.

I know how tedious the carbs can be on these so I started tearing them apart first. I've got them pretty well cleaned up and all the gunk removed. Im not positive out to get the crap out of the enrichement circuit cleaned ouit better, so I have them sitting in carb cleaner in a bucket, then going to try and run a small welding tip cleaner through them to clean them out. Ive replaced the gaskets on the bowls, and rebuilt them. put them back on the bike, and it still wont completely fire up... Now I think it may be my enrichment circuit holding me back, so I tried starting fluid, and it tried for a breif second then as soon as I stop spraying it stops. Took the carbs back off knowing I have more cleaning to do evidently. But I found very little fuel in the carb bowls??? I have replaced the factory petcock with a on/off/prime petcock.

 

did you wet set the floats? all filters clean and free flowing?

 

Valve clearances in spec, motor makes good compression on all 4?

 

Three things must be present in order for an engine to run; 1. compression 2. ignition and 3. fuel, but that's just the basics, equally important are correct valve timing, ignition timing,and proper air/fuel ratio. After fuel, electrical problems should be ruled out. Compression is not that common, but do a comp test anyway to rule it out.

 

One thing that used to get me while I was working on the 650 was that the battery must be fairly well charged OR you need a good, strong battery source like a car battery jumped to the bike if you're going to be cranking on it a lot.

NOTE 1: Use a car battery that isn't attached to anything else. Plenty of cranking power, but no car alternator to screw up your electronics, and no weird things happen to the car if the bike starts up.

NOTE 2: JUMPER it to the bike battery, don't BOLT them together. You need the bike to run without a car battery attached. If it won't, your bike batt is dead. Besides, the bike won't be able to re-charge that big car batt anyway.

I killed a couple of batteries while working on the 650 in various ways, so I've learned a few things NOT to do with 'em. Leaving the key in the ON position for more than a minute without the engine running is a great way to drain the battery, and without a good charge in the battery, you aren't going to get ignition, no matter how well it SOUNDS like it's turning over.