1980 harley davidson sportster 1000cc ironhead

SOURCE: Adjusting timing on Harley Davidson 1976 sportster

The advance timing should be 35° before Top Dead Center. This is how you find out which mark this is.

Get the rear wheel of the bike off the ground, remove the spark plugs, shift the bike into fourth gear, and remove the timing plug from the left engine case.
Now, take an ordinary PLASTIC DRINKING STRAW and insert it into the front spark plug hole. Do not use anything else or you stand a chance of it breaking and then you'll have to pull the head to get it out. The plastic straw will bend but not break.
Bump the rear wheel in the direction that it turns while riding down the road until the piston pushes the straw all the way up and just barely starts going back down. Look into the timing hole. You should see a timing mark. This is the Top Dead Center mark. Now, bump the rear wheel BACKWARDS until you see another mark. This should be the ADVANCED TIMING MARK. The piston should 7/16" down from top dead center.

On this model Sportster the timing is advanced by a mechanical advance mechanism. These units are notorious for wearing out and not contolling the timing very well. You must remove the breaker plate to inspect this mechanism. Mark the position of the plate before you remove it. If the pins and holes in the flyweights are worn, replace the unit. Replace it with a good needle bearing unit. Replace the points and reset the gap at 0.018 - 0.020".

SOURCE: 79 harley ironhead 1000cc xlh no spark from coil

It sounds like your sensor in the timer cavity on the right side of the engine is bad. Disconnect the blue wire from the coil. Take a spark plug out of the engine, put it back in the spark plug wire, and lay it on the head. Turn the switch on and momentarily touch the blue wire to the coil. When you take the wire off of the coil, you should see a spark at the plug. The purpose of the sensor in the timer cavity is to stop the flow of current in the coil and initiate a spark.

Good Luck
STeve

SOURCE: 2003 Harley Davidson Sportster 1200 Custom Tachometer kit

The only idea that i can come up with is that you dont have a good ground..or the guage was bad when you bought it..i hope this..Keith

Gar

• 384 Answers
• Posted on Jul 08, 2009

SOURCE: how much work is it to take off the cover on a

Not too much, if you are a fair mechanic. You probably should get a service manual tho. Basically, you remove the foot pegs and anything in the way, remove shifter, clutch cable. Drain the trans oil, then pull the cover. A couple parts may fall out, that's why I suggested a service manual.

SOURCE: need turn signal wiring diagram for 1982 harley

Contact me directly and I'll try to scan you a copy of a wiring diagram for your 82 Ironhead. [email protected] The diagram I have is quite large and I'll have to send it to you in two .JPG format files. If that would be sufficient, let me know.