Friday, February 21, 2014

Astrid: A Rookie Wrench Milestone

After three years of sitting, and countless disassembly and reassembly by this rookie, Astrid's engine fires up and idles!  It's definitely a milestone.  Probably less to do with my mechanical skill, and just the bullet proof nature of these old Honda engines.

Had a little confusion at first rigging up the killswitch, as I had the wires running to the wrong leads.  After sorting that out, I rigged up the aux gas bottle, ending up just hanging it off a handlebar.  I poured in a little bit of gas and opened up all the petcocks, then checked the carb for leaks.

At that point I moved the bike out into the open where if she caught fire at least we wouldn't burn the garage down.

The first few kicks did nothing.  After a half dozen of these, the kickstarter came loose and I had to re-attach it.  I kept kicking, knowing from the compression test that it took awhile to get up to 120lbs and maybe the oil still needed to be distributed evenly.  Eventually I thought I heard a little mutter right at the bottom of each stroke.  When she caught, she just fired right up without any hesitation.  There was smoke from the exhaust for a minute or two, and I was revving the throttle to keep her running.

Eventually I just let her idle and she ran strong for a few minutes.  She then sputtered and stalled, which may have been because I left the choke open.  But at that point, I'd already seen the massive oil leak coming from the right bottom corner of the alternator cover.  So I didn't start her up again, figuring the day was still an unqualified success.




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