Multi-problemed bike (electrical + ???)

[Goose51683]

At least on the bright side once you get the cooter going you will know the ins and out of her about as well as anyone.

[ImaginativeFig]

I got the stupid JIS screwdriver, but it's not faring any better than the phillips! I tried to vicegrip one of the screws open, but chickened out after it just marked up the screw without any budging. All I seem to be good at doing is messing up fasteners
A friend's gunna come over and see what he can do... though I'm thinking of calling up the friend with the impact...

[grasshopper]

you are on the verge of being a gz250 mechanic.

[Water Warrior 2]

When all the skinned knuckles and swearing subsides you will know a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes it just takes longer so hang in there. Your 1st ride with a good performing Cooter will put a smile in your heart.

[ImaginativeFig]

Yeah well, right now I'm so depressed I might just sit around and do homework. That's a sure sign of broken spirit right there.
What I need to do is stop getting my hopes up so high. Everytime I find a new thing wrong I get all excited, "This has gotta be it! I'll fix this and then I'll have wheels again!"
Anyway. we took the carb apart, took jets out, sprayed carb cleaner in. My friend who's taken his carbs apart just kinda was doing stuff while I was distracted with cleaning gunk off of various pieces, so I can't attest to everything he did. Apparently all of that was to no avail though, since there was no change in the starting noises.
I did find an oil leak though:
edit: Looking through parts diagrams, it looks like it's leaking between the two parts of the head assembly? Is there some sort of sealant supposed to be between there?

[ImaginativeFig]

Ah.. just kidding about homework though. Fat chance of me doing that, haha! Just ate me a bowl of comfort food, aka sugar (dole frozen tropical fruit, mixed with dark chocolate chips and almonds, heated in the microwave until piping hot, then smothered in whipped cream. Mmm-mmm!)
Off to bed. Mentally. emotionally, and physically tired. Yesterday I decided to attempt to cut some rather hard oak with a rather blunt ax. Today many muscles I didn't know I had are rather frequently informing me of what a bad idea that was.


So what's left? Compression, timing, mysterious oil leaks?

[jonathan180iq]

Your friend who kinda/sorta knew what he was doing... did you guys put the petcock on PRI for a minutes or two to refill the float bowl and then try cranking or did you try cranking while the petcock was still on RUN? If the latter, then it would have taken forever for the bike to sip enough fuel into the bowl to start to run and then again to try and crank after sitting for so long.

A poor man's compression test is to place a dollar bill over the exhaust outlet. While cranking, it should only be blown away from the muffler... Also, you can try to turn the compression stroke by hand. If you can, there isn't enough resistance. (This will just give you an idea if you need to invest in a compression test kit.)

Let's check for spark. Have you done that?
Remove the spark plug
Attack plug wire
Ground against motor or frame
Try and start bike
Watch for arcing at plug gap

You only need three things to make it go boom; fire, air, and fuel.

[raul10141964]

to check for compression
remove the spark plug, put your finger on the hole an crank.
if you can stop the air from com out the compression is to low, check the valve gap

[ImaginativeFig]

I've checked for spark (paaaages ago)

We started cranking in the run, then remembered about priming, so let it prime a bit. I forgot to close the bowl drain screw at first, so we got a nice puddle of confirmation that gas did in fact make into the bowl. Then switched to res to make sure that it wasn't just the low(ered) fuel level.

One of my friends has a gauge on a tube, according to youtube videos, you stick that with an adaptor in the sparkplug hole and turn over the bike 'til the gauge stops going up and that's your compression.

I'm still concerned about the oil leaking from between the parts of the head assembly, anyone know what's supposed to be stopping that from happening? Doesn't look like there's a gasket there in the parts diagram (it's a big irregular joining spot, so it wouldn't really make sense anyway). Is it just not tightened down enough?

Recap of what's been done:
✓ Battery tested and good
✓ Fresh gas
✓ New and proper amount of oil
✓ turning over (sounds like)
✓ spark plug sparks
✓ carb cleaned
? doesn't start when starter fluid (approximately) is sprayed in the air intake when cranking
? oil is coming from between cylinder head assembly pieces

[jonathan180iq]

....If it doesn't start, or at least go BANG!!! with starter fluid then you are right is assessing the compression next.

Does your buddy know anything about valve timing? If that's off, compression will be low, as either the intake or exhaust stroke will be open before it should be and not allow for compression to build up to give a nice place for the bang to happen.

Raul's other cheap method for compression testing it pretty sound. But if your friend has a compression test kit, then go ahead and see what's going on.

I can't see most photos on the forum because anything that's photobucket or similar is blocked by my work server. Have you shown us where specifically the oil is seeping out from?

I apologize for 100 questions or even giving advice that's been given before or for things that were already checked. Keeping up with your ongoing trials and tribulations is like #45 of my important things to do before 9:00am every day