Ok, so I know I've been telling you guys that Oz has really good riding weather all year round, and compared to the cooler climes around the world, that's true, but for one reason or another, I've had the (beautiful) K0 for several months now, without actually riding it!
Anyway, my intention this morning was to sort out the carbs on the K1, but then I thought, "I better fire the K0 up as it's been awhile", so my intent then changed to taking the black beast for a quick lap around the block, then back to the K1's carbs.
I fired it up and squeezed it down the driveway past the wife's car, then into the street. It felt good, although the engine felt a little "erratic". Of course, the furthest it had been since arriving in Australia was around my back yard, so I figured that a couple of miles would sort that out.
The first corner woke me up to some "wallowing", with the centre stand scraping slightly, but then I figured that the tires could probably do with some air, as like everything else, this had been neglected since taking delivery of the bike from Andy Morris in Long Island, NY.
I stopped at the nearest Shell servo and pumped the tires up, (only about 20 psi in either, so that took care of the wallowing) and gassed it up with some "V Power Racing" 100 octane fuel, (at $4.75 US per US gallon, it was more a treat more than the norm) and off I went.
Now the engine is (as far as I know) standard everything, but with the sensible addition of one of Hondaman's ignition amplifiers, (is that the correct description Mark?) Dyna 5 ohm coils, and NGK Iridium plugs. When I received it from Andy it had later model carbs fitted so I retro- installed a set of cable carbs that I bought from our own Dennis a year or two ago, and I've gotta say that even though they are fiddly to set up, they are my favourite SOHC4 carbs, really light springs and very responsive, quite the opposite of the later carbs, and my CR29's as well.
I'd pretty much decided by now that a quick lap around the block wasn't gonna cut it, so I thought I'd once again grace SteveK0 with my presence. Steve lives about 28 miles from my place, so I figured as he hasn't seen this bike yet he might like to see it, and maybe take it for a ride? Steve has several K0's in his cavernous garage (I've seen smaller factorys) but doesn't have one on the road as yet, so I figured he might like a ride on one, but it wasn't to be as he wasn't home, so he missed out.
The weather today was awesome, bright sunshine and almost warm! It's days like these that there are a lot of "special interest" vehicles out, Mustangs, '57 Chevys, and Harleys, (lots of Harleys) so I was surprised at the attention that I was receiving on the old black K0. The bike ran sweeter with every mile under it's tires, the wallow vanished with the addition of a bit of air in those continentals, and the exhaust note from the HM300's (sans end baffles) was magnificent!
As this was really a "shakeout run" prior to getting it (legally) on the road, I kept the distance down to a shade over 100 klicks, (60 miles) and was happy that nothing had fallen off it, there were no oil leaks, the brakes worked ok, and it sounded even better as I arrived home and once again squeezed it past the wife's Hyundai.
When I got home the wife reminded me that I was supposed to take her to see "The Bourne Supremacy", so that put an end to doing the K1's carbs, but what the heck, it was still a SOHC4 "red letter day", ha ha! Cheers, Terry.
