Reply To: ’56 RDE-18 doesn’t want to start

[PederJoWI]

Thanks, everyone. The carb is clean – I did a rebuild with a kit last winter, cleaned everything, cleared passages and replaced gaskets. I pulled it yesterday to check it and it’s all still clean and intact. We also pumped some fuel through the line to ensure that it was getting into the float bowl. (Checked buoyancy of float as well and it’s just fine.)

Bobw, when you say the gasket on the high speed nozzle, do you mean the needle that passes through the front with the knob or the jet that goes up the center from the float bowl? The jet gasket is fine. The high speed needle has the metal collar and gasket sort of stuck in that threaded hole. The metal collar is seated where it should be and the gasket appears fine. Honestly, this one may well be an old gasket. I couldn’t pull it out yesterday and I may not have been able to when I did the rebuild. (Can’t remember if I replaced it, but I don’t have the replacement for it, so I’m maybe 50/50 on this.)

I am now suspecting spark, given the knowledge shared here. It doesn’t arc over 1/4”. Unfortunately, one of the short bolts in the flywheel snapped on me as I was installing it yesterday. Ugh. It isn’t seized, so hopefully I can extract it soon. (It’s one of the three around the center nut, a hole used for the flywheel puller.) this being the state of things, I can’t examine the ignition until this is sorted. I recall that getting the magnet to pass the coils as closely as possible without touching them was a bit tricky. Could be that I have them adjusted too far away from the magnet. This would make for weaker spark, wouldn’t it? Reseating the wires seems a reasonable step also. To be clear, there is bright spark on both cylinders and both will arc to block when held slightly away – just not as far as suggested.

Fleetwin, we just wired up the starter yesterday (unused since early ‘70’s). It spins! Question on this, though. We pulled the spark plugs (and grounded them to the block) to test the starter and the starter gear went up and spun the flywheel but didn’t go back down when I released the button. I see threads on the starter shaft and I wonder if the force of the flywheel, under power, sort of kicks the starter gear back – against those threads to drop the starter gear out of the way? Is this how it works? Or should that starter gear drop back down (clear of the wheel) on its own when released? It is still in the up position. It spins freely by hand and spins the wheel on subsequent pushes but remains up. At some point, we’ll get the flywheel off to check ignition and drop this back into the water tank, but I’m hesitant to test my theory of the motor kicking it down when it fires.

Thanks, everyone!