Help with my Panhead - Won't start

chrisbradenton

I just bought a 65 panhead. I picked it up thursday, was on the highway, and the bike started decellerating and then stopped at a certain point - probably about 40 mph. I couldn't throttle up at all. The bike was sluggish. I made it to next exit and the bike died on the off ramp. Pushed it to the gas station and tried kicking it with no luck - it just sputtered. Tried the electic ignition, it wouldn't fire, then later it made a high pitched sound. Trailered it back to my house and charged the battery cause it was nearly dead, put the battery back in and the starter won't do anything. Tried kicking it and nothing happened. It sounds like there is no gas going to the engine (a friend told me this). It sounds like the engine has no gas at all. We checked all the wires, regulator, distributor, etc. Everything was fine except he said there was no power to the distributor. He said the wires check out fine, but can't figure out why the distributor has no power. Any ideas?

I don't know anything about harley's.

Thanks guys, and I'm new to the forum, so.....hi!

biglew55

try cleaning the contacts on the bottom of the ignition switch. The posts can corode like points in your ignition. It's worth a shot and it' free. Just remember to unhook the battery first.

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Gary12850

First off...I'm jealous...I'd love a 65 Pan...that being said, you need to get up close and personal with her, start with the carb, drop the float bowl and make sure it's clean, & check the fuel line/filter, look into the gas tanks (w/ a flashlight) next check your electrical connections, BigLew has the right idea. there is a Panhead manual here in the forum, go to downloads on this page, near the top on the right of the blu/gray bar. download that as well as the shovelhead manual, the pan won't have anything about electronic ignitions but the shovelhead will...you probably have a Mallory electronic distributor, they are generally very reliable...if you have a multimeter you can check out the coil, if all these test don't resolve your issues a compression test would be the next order of business...(you'll need to do that anyway) there should be a difference of no more than 10 to 15 PSI difference...in the shovelhead manual look at page 23 of chapter 2 troubleshooting there is the info you need...I hope this help you...

---------- Gary12850 edit/added post 1 minutes and 0 seconds later ----------

disconnect the negative cable first...

scooterhasch

I've got a 65 with s&s fltwheel and mollery dis. have a hard time with the timimg and starting????

Gary12850

I put an S&S stroker manual on the download section up top below your login, check out the last page as to flywheel timing...