My buddy Sam came over and we tried starting the bike. It took an hour or so of constant kicking, but we finally got the hand of it. His chop doesn’t have a kicker, so both of us were flying blind on this one.
I’m all assembled and went for the first ride. Having never really ridden a bike before, it was a bit scary. To compound this, everyone turned their sprinkler on last night, so I was nervous going into turns on 20+ year old tires.
The bike did well. She sounds good and feels like she has a lot of balls. At speed, she is REALLY buzzy—this surprised me. My hands were numb from the vibration. Next time, I’ll wear some gloves.
Now, for the bad news…The first is that the kickstand interferes with the shifter. I can get my toe under there, but something is going to have to change. But the worst thing is that the little batteries might not stick around—not in their current form. I’m going to give them a few more tries to see if maybe we drained them by trying to kick the bike over for so long. It might also be that the charging system is wired improperly and isn’t working. Who knows? Hopefully, they work.
Worse case: I put a small battery in its place.
I wish there were pictures to show for the weekend, but there aren't. A few weeks ago, I bought some carbs from DRj. I wanted them for the weekend, but accepted the fact that I would not have them. The arrived on Sat looking clean as could be. Still, I gave them a good soack and a quick rebuild. I also picked up my shortened cables on Fri. That said, there was no reason I could not go for a spin this weekend.
Look how tidy the wiring came out!
Sam and I kicked and kicked this thing for an hour or so (I hope that's what drained the battery!). It's frustrating, but she finally woke up.
Finished product from the rear side. I think it came out nicely.
And from the side. There is still stuff to do like give the tank a buff and apply some graphics, but for the most part, she's done. Hopefully, I figure out this battery issue and it works out fine.
