Thanks Ecosse for following, for everyone watching this thread. Means a lot to me to have people along for the ride.
I was able to do a little work on Rita today. I started off with a simple yet satisfying task, remounting the headlight to the forks. Unfortunately the springs are too close together to fit so I need a new mount block. It's cheap so I'll order it tomorrow. I am going to wait to rewire everything because since I will be having the ignition switch in a different location, and indicator lights for oil, neutral, and high beams, I plan to rewire much of the bike later on. I'll be picking up a bunch of rolls of wire and connectors and shrink tube here soon, though I won't need them til I am almost done with the rebuild. Having them on hand will be reassuring. As much as I can I plan on running all new wires from everything I can, from the points, coils, oil and neutral sensors, everything, so I need to inventory which connectors I will need. Since this is a custom build a stock harness won't be of any help, lol. All the same I want this to be as close to a professional wiring job as I can make it.
Got the exhaust pulled and removed the old kickstand. Went to mount up the new kickstand only to find out it is too long by several inches. Going to have to figure out what to do, the old kickstand(stock stand cut shorter) is way too short with the new front end so I have it propped up with blocks. Looking into options: 1.) cut and bend the new kickstand I have to fit, will ruin the chrome. 2.) Find and buy a new shorter kickstand with the same kind of mount as old kickstand, was hard enough finding the new kickstand I have, let alone finding another, lol. 3.) Buy an OEM kickstand and have it chromed or painted to match the bike, this will probably be the easiest way to go.
As I pulled off the exhaust, I found three of the spigots loose, one with a screw almost all the way out. Glad I still have all 8 screws! Going to buy some blue Locktite for the reinstall to keep that from happening again. Heat shouldn't effect Locktite, should it?
After I gave up on the kickstand, I decided to pull the head. I went nut to nut and found 3 loose enough for me to wiggle the studs. Gee, maybe that's why it didn't run so well, lolol. All thee were on the number 1 cylinder. I don't think any of them were torqued down correctly, I loosened all the nuts with one hand on the ratchet, and didn't need to even apply all that much pressure to get them loose. About the time I got all of them loose enough to pull them off with my fingers my back started really hurting so I called it a night, leaving the nuts in place and the head still on, and covered the head again til I can pull it the rest of the way off tomorrow. I am almost afraid of what I'll find once the head is off, but it doesn't really matter because Rita is getting a whole new top end and I know she'll be done right by me, down to the correct torque on every nut and bolt on her.
More to come soon, along with pics.