Finally, an update!
I have been feeling better health-wise and spent the last couple of evenings in the garage getting Bessie back up to speed.
This started with a replacement set of carbs for the bike off of eBay, since the old carbs were leaking and a local carb repair shop quoted me $400 to repair them. I was able to get the replacement set of carbs off of eBay for the same price, so I figure now I have a set of spare parts
The new set had some issues, namely a leaking bowl, a missing bowl gasket and 120
nylon main jets (eew?). I swapped in the other carbs' 105 (metal) main jets and a bowl/gasket as well, did some bench leak tests, adjusted the float levels and confirmed the new carbs were liquid tight.
Also I learned finally how to put on/pull off the carbs on these bikes without fuss or muss - the trick is to drop the bottom half of the air box off before doing any work! SOOO much easier
Today I managed to reassemble everything and was unable to get her to start up. After checking for fuel (lots in the cylinders, almost flooded), spark (plugs were fouled from my last run, so I cleaned them up a bit and put in an order for some new ones) and compression (yup, there's air coming out of the plug hole when I kick the starter, and I've previously done a compression test), a thought occurred to me. Pulled the spark advancer and yup, in my reassembly of it, I got the mark 180 degrees out of phase. (It was lined up with the "300" instead of the "TEC" label. The F3 service manual calls out the correct spark advancer orientation.)
Reassembled the spark advancer, put the tinder on the bike and gave her a few seconds on the starter...and Bessie came back to life !
I am so so happy, I cannot begin to tell you guys. Oil pressure seemed to sit at about 70psi (I have a gauge on the RH side of the crank case) and, though she idled high and a bit roughly, she
did idle.
After about a minute of running, I started to get some whitish-bluish smoke out of the tailpipe. It's enough to give some haze to the air, but not enough to create huge billowing clouds. This continued for about another 45s, and as I attempted to throttle her down to 1000rpm I saw falling oil pressure (to about 20psi), which I think is expected. I decided to call it a day and turned the engine off.
Now, Bessie's been sitting re-assembled for a couple of years now with assembly grease and motor oil sitting in all of the places it's supposed to be, on the valve stems and possibly in the cylinders as well. That said, should I be worried about some light coloured smoke right now? The volume seems less than after the last re-assembly and fire-up test a few years ago, when my bad boring job caused blow-by, but I've not taken her out on the road yet to see if she spews a lot like she used to. (Then again, even with the bad boring job, I was able to ride her 700 miles @ ~45mph, polluting the Ontario countryside...
)
What should I do next? My gut is to give her a once over for nut torque values and safety checks, then take her out on the road and have my phone handy should I stall out by the side of the road. But should I get her up to speed? How fast/how many RPMs/what gears? What should I be looking for when I do this? Not having been on any motorcycle for a few years now I feel out of practice, but I'm sure it'll come back...
Still....today was a qualified success! I am celebrating in my own way
