A Great Day!

The luck if the Irish is with me today! I put my bike back together and it started up just fine. I let it run for about a half an hour. We played with the idle. Now it idles well much of the time. During the time I had it running, it would run down a bit at times, give a bit of a ‘cough’ and would begin to run again fine. But most of the time, I just let it run without the throttle.

Over the last week, I have replaced the plugs, drained and refilled the oil, put in a new oil filter, cleaned out the carburetors and put everything back in place. The carbs look great. The insides are shiny clean. The outside is free of dirt, grime and surface rust. I was toying with the idea of replacing the float valve needle as a matter of course (At the suggestion of my father-in-law) but when I priced new ones from the local dealer (Almost $25 a piece – Outrageous!). So, I cleaned up the ones I had and made sure the rubber tips were in good shape. It all went back together. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor)

One thing I keep trying to do is find the replacements for the bolts that came off the carbs. I stripped some of the heads taking them off. Not horribly, but enough that I’d like to replace them. Now, this is Canada. Metric is our official system of measurement. So I figured finding these types of bolts would be easy. Not so. For some reason, the 6mm flange bolts holding the carbs to the engine are impossible to find. The 8mm sized flange bolts are no problem, but forget the 6mm. I settled for regular hex head bolts. Metric Philips bolts on the carbs were impossible to find as well. The Allen and Robertson head versions were easy to find.

Part of me wants to use all parts that are as original as possible, but I also don’t want to spend my life driving around looking for bolts.

I have discovered at least one reason for my flooding problems. My choke cable doesn’t work properly. In fact, the choke handle came loose from the cable while I had it fully extended. In starting the bike, right now I need to pull the choke manually from the cable as it runs under my seat.

While running the engine so long, some smoke appeared. My father-in-law insisted that it was just old oil and gunk being burnt off the engine, but I was more skeptical. In shutting it down, I noticed some oil dripping from the cylinder head. So, we are going to replace the head gasket.

Overall, I am very pleased. Replacing the choke and the head gasket will take some time, but overall this project is going well. I am going to be putting the bike up on blocks so I can take the wheels off. The front tire definitely needs replacing. I need to do some lubing and oiling (On the bike, not myself – That’s for another type of blog).

A good day’s work.

Now, its time to price parts online.