Help with MAXII with Kawasaki Engine

[scottberry]

Hi guys,

Picked up a MAX II with the round headlights (I believe that model has some designation, Big something?) that was in need of a lot of work. I've stripped it down and rebuilt the engine mostly. The engine is a Kawasaki TA440A and looks to be original. It has a Mikuni carb on it. I left the crank in but honed the cylinders and put on new rings and gaskets. The carb to intake rubber was done so I ordered that. New plugs as well. I have not touched the carb at all.

The thing turns over nicely and even "pops" a bit (with some very faint smoke out of the exhaust manifold) but won't fire. One plug wire is missing some of the boot so you can pull it off and see if the spark is there and it is sometimes there but really hardly at all. So I assume we have an electrical issue.

Should I just replace the coils and the CDI? It seems like you can't diagnose the CDI at all and I haven't touched the coils yet, but I figured I might as well just replace? Is there anything else I need to look at (some parts behind the pull start?). As you can tell I'm not really a mechanic but I'm having fun tinkering. I'm doing head gaskets on a F140 5.4l V8 right now and just picked up a 1969 F250 that needs some love.

Any help is appreciated. Can't wait to get this thing running. It came to me with almost NO tension on the chains so it drove like crap. The engine ran but took a lot of love to get going (starter fluid) and smoked a ton. The chains tensioned up nicely with the stock tensioners and some pressure washing took out a ton of dirt and grease.

Oh another question... what is the chain greasing/lube situation? Do I slather them in some thick grease or just some light lithium grease?

[Mike]

Hi scottberry, welcome to the forum. I'm no help on the 2 stroke but for lubing your chain, just pick up some good chain lube at your local auto parts store and spray them all. No need for anything thicker than that.

[scottberry]

Cool, thanks Mike. A bit far from needing lubrication yet, but getting excited. Do you happen to know the name of the "model" with the round headlights? I was looking to get some pics of the original look of it so I could fix up the dash. The PO put a bunch of holes in it for buttons and such that aren't there anymore. Wasn't sure which items were there stock.

[jpswift1]

All Max II models before the 2000 model year came with round headlights. Your machine with the factory installed TA440A Kawasaki is considered the "Big Max". This was the fastest factory Max II model that they produced. It is very quick! The Kawasaki is a great 2 stroke and the TA440 series are popular with the Ultralight aircraft folks. I don't know where exactly, but search around the gallery for pics of a Max II dash, there are a lot of pics there. What's the serial number of your machine? This will be able to let us know what year it is.

Max 6 Wheelers - Amphibious ATV Pictures

[scottberry]

Thanks!

I'll look for a serial, not quite sure where those are. I assume you're not just talking about the engine itself.

If anyone knows about the CDI and coils that would be awesome. I've see some "replacements" for the CDI that look nothing like what I think the CDI is in the MAX (tiny black box, several wires, no markings on it, mounted to "bulkhead"). Also the coils don't "look" like what I have now and am unsure if I have to put the ends of the plug wires on them (they look like they don't come with them in the pictures) or anything else. The coils have wires that go in to the engine so not sure if I splice those to new coils or if I have to disassemble more.