1979 2pg cranks very slowly
 

Hey guys. Just acquired a 1979 3 wheeler marathon with a 2pg engine with the internal starter/generator. PO said it would crank but not start. It didn’t come with a battery, but with a jump box at ~12.5v charge hooked up, it’ll barely turn over. I mean, it’ll spin slow, then almost stops every 180* at compression. All the wires and connections look fine, although in the past 40 years whoever owned it sure did do some sketchy splicing and wiring. I’m leaning towards the f/r switch needs a good cleaning since it turns over slower in reverse, but was hoping someone had experience and could point me in the right direction. I’m $0 into this thing, and it’s only a three wheel so i don’t really want to just toss parts into it. I’d love to get it going under its original, all mechanical, power. I should also note that the p/o wired the ignition to a flip switch, so when running it would be flipped “on” and flipped back off to shut it down. I’m hoping that didn’t fry anything. I’ll try to post pics and a video of it turning over.