Had some time this afternoon so I finished mounting up the cleaned petcock on my newly cleaned fuel tank and mounted it and the seat up and buttoned up a couple other little things. I had run it off the slave tank a week or more ago and now it was official. Turned the petcock to 'prime' ,dropped the choke lever down and after a couple jabs with the left sided kicker (got to get used to that-no electric start on this model) it cracked and cackled to life again. Supposedly was last on the road in 1974. Warmed it up up a little then fiddled with the carbs to get the idle down. Two different adjustment points, one screw for each slide and got it down to around 1200 rpm. I need to study up some more to really dial these carbs in as far as synching etc. The clutch plates were free so I snicked it in gear and off I went. As the engine began to clean out I was leaving some impressive smoke trails. Transmission shifted great with no scary noises. That is always a major relief. Even though the bike still has its original 1971 factory redline tires amazingly there are no cracks etc. but still kind of a scary deal. I ran the bike up to around 65-70 mph a few times to help clean things out. Pretty impressed with the front drum brake and the rear also. Luckily all the lights and the blinkers, horn etc work perfect. Would hate to have to replace the headlight, its a goofy shape and expensive.
The smoke cleared up to what may be called normal and the smoke seemed even out of both pipes which is a good sign so far. Going to pretty much call this one good for now and move on to another project and in the meantime study up a little more on tuning tips and search for a couple of parts I would like to still get for it. Little more cleaning if I get in the mood. Definitely looking forward to a little more road testing also !!
Thanks for following along. Eric
