After the restoration: 600 Mile Service

It’s close enough to 600 miles, so time for the next “service”. All that’s really needed here is an oil change, but I’m doing a bit more as the bike hasn’t been running quite right: it sometimes pings under medium load and there is more vibration than there should be.

Seems like I’ve yet to learn how to drain the oil without getting it all over the garage floor. One of my containers is too large to fit under the bike. The one I tried this time was too small. Back to the drawing board.

The previous owner came by last week to see what I’d done with the bike. He pointed out a loose bolt on the center stand. So as part of the service I checked/torqued all nuts and bolts. The nuts holding the carbs were also loose again. I torqued them down (tighter, this time) but will monitor them closely. I’m sure this helped with my carb tune.

That black smudge on the exhaust pipe is what happens when you get the cord to the timing light too close. Don’t do that. I caught it in time – the timing light still works. The points were checked and adjusted and the bike timed. Then it was time to take a ride to get it up to temperature for carb adjustments. Once at operating temp I set the idle speed, idle mixture, re-tweaked the idle speed, and made sure the carbs are balanced at RPM. The throttle cables had stretched, so the balance was off. They’re set quite nice, now.