Last night's triumph has been haunting me all day. Whenever I have had a spare moment I have been thinking about how to get fuel into the bike. When I got home today and after I had my tea [the northern meal taken after work not the hot brown liquid] I went into the garage to way up the possibilities. I had a good look inside the tank and gave it a shake. What I could see of the inside of the tank was rusty. Shaking the tank gave the telltale sounds of flaky rust loose in the bottom of the tank. I thought about when I might get a tank and whether I was prepared to wait that long. The decision was made very quickly.
I had fuel filters in the spares box. I cut down the existing fuel lines to accept the fuel filters. I hoped the filter would keep the smeg from the tank out of the carbs. I then connected the fuel lines up. I had a Jerry can of fuel in the Land Rover. I sploshed a gallon into the tank and checked the petrol taps flowed. One was OK but the other was a bit slow. When turned on the fuel the leaks appeared. After close inspection I found that the bends required in the fuel lines to fit the filter were causing a poor seal to the fuel spigot on the carbs. I took off the carefully made fuel lines and replaced them with the spare fuel hose. No filters this time. I resolved that cleaning the carbs would be a price I was willing to pay if I got the bikes started this evening. I put a bit more fuel in the tank since I did not fit the balance pipe on the temporary fuel lines. I took the float bowls off and checked the float was doing its job. Just as well I checked one float was stuck. It just needed a tap to free it. Float bowls back on. I then dury-rigged and couple of throttle cables with some spare electrical wire. That took a bit of doing but finally got a secure fix. One last deep breath. Then I remembered the spark plugs were not screwed in. That job done and the suppressor caps pushed on I stepped back for a deep breath before the big moment.
I put the choke to full on, switched the ignition on and hit the starter button. The starter motor engaged and engine heaved round and round but it sounded flat. I moved the ignition unit a little and the biked coughed into life but running very lumpy. In fact just one cylinder was firing. I let the engine heat up a little and did the usual sort of tests. I pulled the plug of the cylinder that was not firing. It made no difference which meant that pot was not even tying to fire. I turned the engine off and looked for the spark monitor. I fitted the monitor between the spark plug cap and the spark plug and restarted the engine. The monitor flashed as the spark passed by. The issue must be fuelling. I took off the air inlet tract to the offending carbs. I restarted the bike again and did the old two-stroke trick of putting you hand over the air inlet. Your have to be careful when you do that with a 400cc cylinder. The induction can bend you fingers painfully the wrong way. I noticed the carbs seemed very dry. Engine off, fuel off and the carb dismantled. I cleaned the jet and made sure everything else was working. I had the carbs top off to check the diaphragm. All looked ok. I put the carbs back together and turned the fuel on. I hit the switch again, the engine turned. Using my hand I was able to get the cylinder to fire but only intermittently.
After an 30 minutes of single pot running and one and a half pot running, I stopped. I tidied up and retired to consider the position. Although the bike fired and runs, after a fashion, and that is great, it shows that there are some problems left to sort out. If the carbs are knackered or the wrong ones then it could be expensive to resolve. The mechanicals of the engine sound fine when running which means the engine re-build was a success and that is a major plus point. There is a little oil leak on the sump pan seal. I got about three turns on each of the sump pan bolts. I guess the heat of the running engine made the seal move and the bolts loosen. There is good access to this seal so it should be easy to resolve.
