IT STARTED!!!! And ran for a bit too! With full choke, but I don't care. Having had it apart for over a year, just to hear it start up was awesome!
The bad news- It's only running on 3 cylinders. The number 3 cylinder (the one not running) has lower compression than the rest. I'll get a gauge on it to find the exact numbers, but it barely pushed my buddies finger off the plug hole when we cranked it.
I also could only bring it slightly off of full choke, and whenever I tried to give it any gas, it wanted to die. Darn carbs.... I know it's not the carbs fault. I was the one who put them together, so it's totally my fault, but grrrrr. When running on full choke, it's hitting around 3 to 4k rpms. And it sounds pretty nice with the exhaust I built. I'm so glad that I made them facing the ground and slightly away from me though.
It's a bit hard to start, but once it starts, it runs. But I still can't give it any gas. And even after it runs for awhile, it's still hard to re-start.
I took the valve cover off, and rotated the cam, and the buckets move free... DARN... So now I have to take the head off and see what's going on with the valves... I lapped the living daylights out of them when I was putting everything together. And everything seemed true and straight during assembly. So I'm kinda in a pickle.
The really bad news- I'm moving to Oregon in just about 3 weeks, so I seriously don't have the time to take things apart, and I am going to be staying with some very kind people for awhile, when I move out there. So taking along a "project" doesn't seem like the best idea.
I am SOOOO not a happy camper. If it were running, then taking it would not be a problem. But taking along something I still have to fix, when I don't even have a place of my own, that's a whole different matter...
Do you ever feel like your head is going to explode?