ballbearian
Veteran Member
This was my first resto-rodeo. Bought in "09 on an ebay auction and hadn't run in 30 years. I still have the leaky float with gas in it that probably started it's long nap. Never got into the motor, just paint, repack the bearings and tidy up the electricals and of course clean the whole fuel system. Finally got it on the road in 2019 (only 10 years) and have put another 500 miles on it, except last year, it only got 50. As it was warming up, I got distracted and it fell over from the soft ground under the center stand. Well, it idled away, kind of, and when I found it and stood it up it died. No soup on restarting.
Here is the plan:
Clean carb
Change oil and clean filter
Ditch the 60 year old OEM tyres (they are still good!)
Adjust the valves and points/timing (no timing chain here)
Fix the cheap skate header to muffler repair with a better cheap skate repair (end of header rusted through where original packing was, so I made a sleeve from bicycle frame tube and used a wrap of silicone sheeting as a thinner packing). New repair is a second steel sleeve of 1 3/8 OD fencing rail, so no packing at all.
May as well polish the elegant, if I say so myself, intake and clean and clear coat the ever rusting choke lever. Finally found some Viton Orings that fit the intake on amazon. Supposedly good to 212 degrees F. A Viton bowl gasket would be nice if I could find sheet thin enough some day.
Also, may as well rebuild the OEM petcock (weird, sits sideways) because I got some new packing and the replacement is getting loose and a bit leaky through the valve. No drain on the carb bowl, so it gets used every ride to run it dry, except it's not dry, and a little ethanol doesn't have to sit long to start corrupting those jets.
Big bonus! Those new Orings seem to fit the petcock mounting groove too.
Here is the plan:
Clean carb
Change oil and clean filter
Ditch the 60 year old OEM tyres (they are still good!)
Adjust the valves and points/timing (no timing chain here)
Fix the cheap skate header to muffler repair with a better cheap skate repair (end of header rusted through where original packing was, so I made a sleeve from bicycle frame tube and used a wrap of silicone sheeting as a thinner packing). New repair is a second steel sleeve of 1 3/8 OD fencing rail, so no packing at all.
May as well polish the elegant, if I say so myself, intake and clean and clear coat the ever rusting choke lever. Finally found some Viton Orings that fit the intake on amazon. Supposedly good to 212 degrees F. A Viton bowl gasket would be nice if I could find sheet thin enough some day.
Also, may as well rebuild the OEM petcock (weird, sits sideways) because I got some new packing and the replacement is getting loose and a bit leaky through the valve. No drain on the carb bowl, so it gets used every ride to run it dry, except it's not dry, and a little ethanol doesn't have to sit long to start corrupting those jets.
Big bonus! Those new Orings seem to fit the petcock mounting groove too.