Anyone here good with older motorcycles? Starting issue

[Ilya]

To make a long story short, I purchased an old Gen 1 Kawasaki KLR 650 for $1,500. It's a 1989 with 19.6kmi on it.

Put about $800 into it already with fluids, pads, chain, sprockets, etc.

Bike ran pretty dang good all things considered. Was told that at this mileage, I would be smart to change the 'doohickey' (balance sprocket parts) inside the left cover of the engine.

I decided that while draining the oil, I would in fact go ahead and do it and 'kill two birds with one stone'.

Haven't had it running since.

1) Drained oil
2) Took off left cover
3) Decided it was too complex looking for me to do, so decided to only change the oil and not do anything with the engine/doohickey
4) Installed a new gasket and put the cover back on, filled with new oil
5) Bike just turns over and over and over, won't start
6) Take off cover again...notice that stator has a cut wire. I'm assuming bad solder from previous owner and I broke it while taking the cover off
7) Order new stator
8) While installing new stator I decided to try the engine upgrades. I get the rotor retainer bolt off but can not for the life of me (impact gun, long breaker bars, special rotor puller tools) get the rotor bolt to break the rotor free. Give up on that and go back to trying to fix the starting issue
9) Install new stator along with another new gasket (sprung a leak on the other one)
10 Bike still will not start. Just turns over and over.

I've checked spark, definitely getting that. As far as I can tell, fuel is fine. Petcock was working good before that...

How could I possibly have broken my bike by removing the cover? It started pretty much immediately before that.

[darylzero]

Not trying to be a jackass, but are you turning it the correct way?

From this site it comes off counter-clockwise. http://www.klr650.marknet.us/doohickey.html

[Ilya]

Not trying to be a jackass, but are you turning it the correct way?

From this site it comes off counter-clockwise. http://www.klr650.marknet.us/doohickey.html

I was following a video and in the video he tightens the rotor puller bolt and it spins the rotor off (that spins to the left or CCW). When I tighten it, mine does ni such thing.

Regardless, I'm done with that...not going to do the mod. My only issue right now is the bike not starting. I want to get it running and then I'm selling it.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Man...it could be so many things. Hard to know without seeing the bike. It could be a gummed up carb. It could be a timing issue after playing with all that stuff. It could just be old gas (bikes that sit for a while are really prone to this, especially those with metal tanks--it'll easily impair starting). It could be another fuel issue. Might be the plug. Could be a combination of the above due to lack of maintenance over time.

I suspect that, with the tinkering, something's thrown off the timing.

I'll qualify this response by saying that I have THREE older ('70s and '80s) bikes in my shed, and none of them run correctly at the moment because I haven't had time to do the same troubleshooting on them this year. So my advice might not be so great.

[Ilya]

The thing is the bike ran literally just before I touched the cover...I did 400 miles on it since buying it and after doing all of the other maintenance like plug, coolant, etc.

It has to be something electrical that is just a coincidence or something as a result of touching the cover...but the first time I took off the cover I did NOT touch the rotor or rotor retaining bolt...so in theory the timing shouldn't have been thrown off. The second time, yes, I spun the rotor back and forth (to fit the rotor wrench) a few times I'm sure.

I'm listing the bike as-is on CL tonight...that's how frustrated I am with it.