So after a successful Saturday on the electrics, plus forks & tank addressed, the next step was to fire it up. Now this is a pretty big deal to someone whose own bikes have been in bits for 30 years and never seen petrol. Well my AS3 did once I think and my RD250 has went in my presence but basically I've never brought a bike back from the dead.
So I got a fiver's worth of gas. Wheeled the bike out into the sun. Tentatively filled the tank via a jug and the wind kept blowing the fuel onto the tank (thank God I've not just re-sprayed it) but after this was wiped off I could see there were no leaks. Nice one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_FUwkxTxu8walkround video (very short)Turned the tap on a petrol poured out from places it shouldn't. Turns out it was from the hose (onto tap) that previous mechanic had added with fuel filter. Trimmed a bit of that off and added a small tie-wrap and tried again. No leaks. So I started to crank it over on the starter button but there was no signs of life altho the battery was surprisingly strong considering it hasn't been used for 3 years or so. I then tried some choke which reminds me of Hannah asking, way back, 'is the choke on when the lever is up or down?'. At the time I had no idea. Couldn't find the answer and the little arrow on the lever could be taken to mean either way.
However on Saturday when I was messing about with the electrics trying to find where the loom earthed I took the LHS airbox out which brings the hose leading to the carb out too and could therefore see the choke flap in action. With the lever up the flap is horizontal (ie open) and with lever pushed down the flap is vertical (ie closed/on) so the arrow on the lever actually indicates direction to take choke off not put it on.
Anyway with the choke on I still wasn't getting anything so the plugs came out and as well as being crusty they are in pretty bad condition and there was no trace of any fuel on them. I gave them a clean and checked for spark by resting then on the downpipes while cranking the engine over. I could see a very faint spark so at least the ignition system was working.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdUI0lkG34kcranking video (short)not pretty despite being only about 2000 miles oldthis one doesn't look so bad but still large gap for spark to jumpSo I was getting a spark of sorts but possibly fuel problem. Was thinking mb carb problem. Jets blocked or flaot stuck. For some reason I thought mb try boosting the battery a bit just by adding the charger to it. It's a bit fiddly getting it to balance under seat but worked good enough previous days when I was checking the electrics. At first I wasn't getting anything different from before but then tried taking the choke off. The linkage between the two crabs for the choke flaps is pretty rubbish on these. Its a metal strip in a U shape and I noticed the previous day it wasn't really working great when I operated the lever so as well as pushing the lever up I stuck me fingers up between the carbs to push the strip backwards.
Anyway much to my surprise Francis sprang to life and continued to idle away after I removed the battery charger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKhAX0WHziwstart-up video (longer)