I'd like to point out I had actually had it running last week, but only for a few seconds at a time.
Definitely not right, but yes, there is life. Chris, (one of the regulars at Loony's workshop & "forgotten" here on the forum), was determined to have it going & as he's 30 years younger than me, I was quite happy to let him kickstart it for 10 minutes in the blazing heat at the transport show yesterday. His Dad's an ex side car racer so tweaked the Amal carbs a little. It's running far too weak, as we said, so he just wound the mixture up a bit. I think he also cupped his hands over the air filters too to reduce the amount of airflow. Lots of throttle & lots of kicking & it did indeed fire up & very nearly tick over. Vibrated a fair bit but it was being revved quite hard at the time. As I said the other day, it probably needs the needles lifted from the centre position to the top one & maybe bigger jets -which is where Mr Dslam's superior expertise will come in. I don't want a race tuned engine, but I'm hoping it'll be as well behaved as a standard XS650 -if it's too highly strung & temperamental it'll just be hard work to ride. Hopefully Andy can tame it on Wednesday.
Burlen Fuel Systems, who still make Amal carbs, as well as SUs, are based in Salisbury, not far from here, so if I finish work early enough tomorrow, I may nip over & buy a pair of the later model "Stay Up" floats, which are adjustable, unlike the plastic ones my carbs have. I'll see if I can buy the next size up jets too.
Got lots of attention at the show yesterday, as did all the other Manky vehicles on our pitch. Only small low spot was finding as we were about to load the bikes back in the van at the end of the day, that someone apparently took a liking to my bar-end mirror. It's possible it was dislodged during Chris's kickstarting, but it was pretty securely bolted into the end of the bars. Looked like someone had had a very determined yank at it & managed to get it halfway out of the bar. Still got it & it's not damaged so no real problem -just one of the joys of public shows.
Standing back & looking around the bike in the sunshine, I'm very happy with it. I suspect the plastic indicators will fall apart at the first sign of vibration & you can see all the joints in the chromed exhausts, where I welded the various sections together then ground them down flat, so I wouldn't be surprised if they fracture at some point. If so, I'll replace them with single piece polished stainless ones. Otherwise, I'm hoping it'll stay very much as it is for many years to come.
