Well, last night was a bit of a frustrating one! Without scrolling back, I'm pretty sure I mentioned that my plans to work on the bike over winter got a bit screwed because I've been sent away for work. I'm only in town on weekends since mid October until April, so my weekends are pretty busy between catching up on stuff that needs to be done from the week, gigging with my band, spending time with my wife, and trying to maintain some form of social life. I haven't have any time to touch the bike since my last post, two and a half months ago.
Anyway, I happened to have a free day today so I called up a buddy earlier in the week to see if he could give me a hand. Plan was to pop the carbs back in, get the bike running and see if my problems were solved by the cleaning. If not, he knows significantly more than I do so he was going to help diagnose the issues. Doing this means that last night was the time to empty out the vinegar from my gas tank (has been soaking to get rid of some rust in there) and fill it up with gas so we could get everything running today. Well, I wasn't quick enough with my rinsing and getting the inside dried and coated with WD-40. It was looking fantastic in there, got rid of so much rust then it flash rusted and is way worse than it ever way. So shit. All that time for nothing and because the tank wasn't good we couldn't get anything further than popping the carbs back in. Later today I'll be buying more vinegar to fill it back up and hopefully I can find time this next weekend to do it up properly and get the tank on and see if the bike runs.
My friend still came by today to help me put the carbs back in though. I had such a hard time getting them out by myself I figured two people would be better than one to get them back in. With much effort and more swearing we got them in but they aren't looking quite right to me. I looked back at old photos but its sort of hard for me to tell. On the air filter side, should the carbs be more in the boots? My friend and I both agree that they probably should be but for the life of us we couldn't get them in any more on that side. Is this just how they are or do I need to keep fiddling with them?
I'll be putting in an inline filter as well before I get the bike going. With the amount of effort it is getting the carbs back in and out I want to do this as little as humanly possible. I had one but I keep and work on my bike in my works (construction company) shop and its gone missing. We have a lot of random stuff kicking about so I'm assuming at some point over the last few months somebody grabbed it thinking it was the companies... but I'll look again before buying a new one.