Will She Run?

Time to get the engine ready for it’s test run. If it runs we can continue the rehab if not This may be the end.

Pre-Checks

• First we change the oil and check the filter. The old oil looked pretty good. It was dark as would be expected but there was no water or metal shavings . So I cleaned and put the original oil filter back in for now and refilled the engine with new oil.
• Cylinders, I didn’t want the engine to tear up the cylinders trying to dry fire it so I pulled out the spark plugs and checked the cylinders for any scoring, rust, corrosion etc. they looked nice and shiney
  • I put a few drops of oil in each cylinder to prevent a dry start.
• I checked the spark plugs. they looked like they were running normal. But ultimately would need replacing before putting the bike back on the road.
• Next I installed a new battery and turned on the key to make sure the electrics were working
  • At first I found there was a short in the electrical system and had to diagnose and hunt down the culprit.
    • Turned out to be a wire that got disconnected at some point that was touching the frame. Problem solved
• Next I plugging in the spark plugs to their wires and grounding them to the cylinder to see if it had spark
• And after adding a small bit of oil to each intake. With no carbs installed I finally Hit the starter and turned the engine over.
• Spark plugs Sparked and the engine turned over freely with no odd sounds.

The Moment of Truth

Getting ready for the first startup

• First I installed the original spark plugs back into the cylinders
• Then I installed the Carbs and connected the throttle and choke
• then I installed the Petcock to the tank and Laid the tank on the bike
• I put some gas in the tank and found out that the petcock has a small drip. (we can deal with that later
• Hooked up the fuel lines and petcock vacuum line
• I allowed the carb bowls to fill with fuel (no leaks there)

And we were all set…

You will notice a few things here

After dealing with the Petcock drip I turned off the fuel Petcock and forgot to turn it back on. so the only fuel was the fuel in the float bowls.

The One cylinder tried real hard to kick over but no start until I realized my mistake and turn the fuel on

One cylinder kicked on and finally held it’s own until the other cylinder got enough fuel to light the fire.

then it lit up and ran extremely smooth.

Remember… this is the first time this engine ran in 13 years , the carbs were not set up or synced, and the throttle cables were not adjusted (or even very tight. So With all that this engine did a stellar jobs for a first start.

Now Lets see if she restarts with less issues…

Beautiful restart

Looks like we can continue the rehab. Still with nothing set up the bike started right up and ran strong… so lets get started!