What have I missed

[djbarcy]

'65 305 Dream, complete restoration. Bike ran strong after restoration but sat for last 2 years in Florida before moving back to Ohio. Rebuilt carb and after replacing it started and ran fine and then quit. Turns out there was trash in the tank so flushed tank, and rebuilt carb and petcock. Would not start, pulled carb, cleaned again, checked float height at 26.5 mm from facing. Reinstalled, started, ran 30 seconds and quit. Puled carb agian and now will not start. Battery has full charge, timing and points good. Would apperciate any input. Thanx!

[conbs]

How's your battery? Pull your plugs and ground them to the head to make sure you are getting spark. If not, check battery, rectifier, etc.

If you have good spark, take the inlet line off the carb and turn the petcock to on and then Reserve. Got gas? You may need to clean the rust out of the tank. Search the Washing Soda treatment on the forum.

If you've got gas out of the petcock, put just a little gas into the intake of the carb and crank it to see if it at least sputters. If it does, go through your carb again.

Spark and fuel and it should run.

[pknopp]

9 times out of 10 that I've not been able to get a bike run, I replaced the plugs and it's starts right off.

Make sure the battery is working well. It may take a charge but still not be strong. Maybe I'm just not much at maintenence, I dunno, but I can't seem to get a battery stay at peak performance for more than two seasons. Again, maybe it's me but IMO plugs are crap now a days. Back in the day you could abuse them, run a little sand paper over them and they would run forever.

Change the plugs.

[Jethro]

Fuel tank not venting perhaps?

[djbarcy]

Thank you for your suggestions! Fuel is flowing to carb without restriction. The way I found that I had an initial issue there was when I dropped the bowl and saw only a trickle flowing. The tank is now clean (not sure where junk came from as when restored I had the tank boiled and the interior is coated with epoxy). Supposed to be in the 70 and clear tomorrow so I am anxious to get it running. The battery is holding a good charge and is fully charged between tries. Although I have good spark I will try your suggestion of putting a new set of plugs in as well as pull the carb again and go through it. Again, thank you! Dan

[lrutt]

The spark can be quite a bit weaker when using the electric starter vs kick starter. Might try new plugs then kick it to make sure.

Also, you say you coated the tank, did you verify flow after you coated it, recently? Some coatings will delam and foul the petcock and block things up.

Where in Florida are you, I live in Deltona.

[djbarcy]

Thanks lrutt, I have been going back and forth from starter to kick and unfortunately still no results.
Excellent question about the flow after having the tank epoxied! The petcock was removed for the process. When the initial flow issue was discovered I removed, cleaned and rebuilt the petcock making sure the 2 tubes were cleaned.
I lived in Coral Springs, west of Fort Lauderdale but moved back to my home town just outside of Cleveland, Ohio last year. This is the same bike I had growing up here in the 70's. Brought it back up last November and have been waiting since for the weather to break so that I can ride it through the old neighborhood and on the streets we used to ride back then.
Raining and only 45* here now but heading to the garage to make the suggested adjustments.