New to this forum, 1988 electraglide won't start, HELP!

[potoole]

Hello, I'm new to this forum and I need help and advice for my 1988 electraglide, 1340 evo, that will not fire up.

My 1988 Harley Electraglide wil not start, or even fire.
It was running fine when I parked it in my garage last night, and has been running fine since putting in a new edlebrock carb a couple of weeks ago.
Today, after trying to first start it, it puttered a couple of times - then nothing, just the starter turning the engine over until battery runs down. Except that it backfired a few times with a very loud, sharp backfire (sounded like a shotgun). Tried jumpstarting, and got the same results, never fires, except for an occasional sharp backfire.
Tried adjusting the carb's lean/rich adjustment, made no difference, except backfires weren't as sharp as carb was leaned.
Gave up.

There is spark at the plugs, has compression.

Could it be a timing problem?
Is there a timing belt, or chain that might have slipped?
Would a bad VOES cause such a problem?

Thank you
Patrick

[xlfan]

Sounds like a spigot mount carb experiencing a blow-out of the rubber mount. Does it look like fuel enters combustion chamber?

xlfan

[verson22]

Massive vacumn leak?

[potoole]

I checked to see if the carb was properly in place.  There doesn't appear to be any loose connections; the manifold is tightly in place.  I thought, maybe, the mani. popped out of the rubber connections, but both inlets are tightly connected to mani.

Could this problem have someting to do with the timing?
Is there a timing chain, gear, or belt that might have jumped out of place?

Patrick

[smittyon66]

Cam timing is gear.
Have you looked at the sparkplugs to see if they are wet or dry?

[JohnS_Rosamond]

I think that the first thing I would do, is to return the carb to all it's default settings (as if it had just come out of the box).  I would check to see if gas was making it to the carb (though it sounds like it is).  If you turned the engine over enough to run the battery down, did it smell like fuel?  It should have.  Even though you said that you felt that there was spark, it really sounds like an ignition issue.  Not fuel.  So, there are two things that I might suspect: the ignition coil and/or the ignition pickup at the end of the gear cover.  The timing is gear drive, so there's no chain to slip, and the timing advance / retard is highly unlikely to move by itself.  If you can, see if you can borrow a dual fire coil from someone.  If that doesn't work, take a look under the gear cover (take out the two rivets at the end of the gear cover) and see if the pick up sensor looks like it's melted.  The last thing is that it could actually be the ignition module.  My 1988 module is still stock, but I know a guy with an '89 FXRT who went to a Dyna S ignition because a dealer told him that his ignition module had gone bad.  I think that I would try and borrow a coil, and then I would replace the ignition pickup - after I checked for fuel at the carb.

[potoole]

I'm getting spark at both plugs; I checked again to be sure.  I don't think I'm getting gas to the cylinders, because after cranking the engine over and over, with spark wires unattached, I pulled the plugs and both were dry; there was no smell of gas on them.  I also cranked the engine, throttle open, plugs out and held my finger over the plug holes and felt no gas.
The carb is a new Edelbrock Performer Series Carburetor for 1984-89 EVO Big Twin and 1986-87 Sportster. Ball Burnished finish. A  Complete Carburetor Kit, which included air filter assembly.  It worked great at first; engine stated and ran right off.

Patrick

[JohnS_Rosamond]

Well, that's good because it means that the problem may be much more simple.  If you didn't smell gas, then chances are - as you said - that gas isn't flowing to the carb.  Take off the fuel line where it goes into the carb and turn on the fuel valve.  Is fuel getting there?  If this carb has a float bowl, take that off and see if there's any fuel in the bowl.  The fuel strainer that's in the gas tanks will stop small stones, but is a fairly coarse mesh and wont stop the small grit that can plug up a jet.  On an older bike that I had, I had fuel tank liner plug up my fuel strainer, but that's more rare with the later model bikes (that often don't have the chemical liner).