Well, not on the XL so Mr Eaton will have to wait a bit longer until he finds out if the XL actually has a piston in the engine. No, progress on the CB for a change. It wasn't running properly below 3k, misfiring and dying as soon as one let go of the throttle. Above that, it was running fine but it was also a barsteward to start. The problem was eventually traced to a broken throttle cable that prevented the two carbs from moving in sync. Today I finally got around to changing the cable. Unfortunately this meant having to drain the tank completely as Honda-san decided that running the tank's balance pipe underneath the top frame spar would be far superior to running it above it. Oh well, apart from trying to squeeze about seven litres of petrol into a five litre can (hint: it doesn't work) this wasn't a problem. A quick change of cable later and after doing the Haynes BoL thing, I kicked it over. Chuggchugchugchugga. Arse. Where have I heard this noise recently? Kick again with slightly open throttle. Nothing. Kick. Chug. Chug. Kick. Chug. Oh fuggit, I'll use the choke then... *Bang* Vroooommmmmmmmm. A bit of twiddling on the set up the idle properly, some more twiddling synchronised the cables as well as I could without breaking out the vacuum gauges. It's now ticking over properly and will rev smoothly from tickover (about 1k) to, well, as high as I would dare which was about 6k on the hot engine. Feck me is this thing loud when revved hard. So, "only" the following jobs left to go: * Get the bodywork resprayed. Yes I know, but if I don't get it done now I'll never get around to it. If I manage to drop if off with the painter next Saturday I should have it back mid-May. * Replace the main (butchered) wiring loom with the unbutchered K6 wiring loom I've got, then hook up the correct sealed beam headlight instead of the H4 it's carrying now. * Fix the damage that occurred when some cnut dropped it because he didn't realise that it was parked in a puddle of petrol (remember the can?) so the plank it was parked on was slippery? Not to mention that the same clumsy cnut managed to drop it on the other side when lifting it up because he didn't check that the sidestand was fully extended. Arse. Oh well, at least that'll keep Dave Silver in business... Right, time for brekkie methinks.
