Burn Baby Burn!

Eureka!!

After the oil change was done I inserted the fresh battery. The leads had been bastardized something fierce so I took the battery connection leads off of the 750 beside it. I found some clean bolts to connect it and Voila! (or is that et voila?) Now to get it running.

I had a heck of a time putting the gas tank back on. There was a time 5 years ago when removing and reinstalling my tank was a daily occurrence. Now? Lord help me if I even know where to connect to the carburetors. Finally got it figured out now lets get 'er going.

Checklist:

oil drained? ---> Check
oil replaced? ---> Check
battery connected? ---> Check
petcock open? ---> Check
ignition on? ---> Check
bike in neutral? ---> Check

Touch the ignition button... the bike cranks? Hooray
Keep cranking....
Give it more gas... choke it...more choke...less choke
cranka cranka cranka
Nothing

I continue this until there is no juice left to crank. Shoot. Now what?

Connect charger and go watch Survivor on the PVR.
Survivor kinda sucked all I could think about is the bike. Time to go disconnect the charger. It's midnight and I can't leave it plugged in overnight.

So I get out there and disconnect the charger, put a few things away (gotta stay organized), and drink the last bit of wine I left out there (one mouthful). Time to go in. OK...let's give it one more try. cranka cranka cranka...vrrrrrrrrrrr

we have ignition
we lost ignition

OK new lease on life. Lets continue. Play with the choke try again. It starts... Yippee (who really says yippee?). It stays started. OK don't breath. Its starting to warm up. Oh my it's starting to smoke. Quick check... oh right? I sprayed penetrating lube all over every bolt yesterday. It's just burning off. Will it run on its own? Yes. Set the idle a little higher. Sounds good. There's no response on the throttle but I can save that headache for tomorrow. It's 12:30 at night and this bike is sounding very loud in my garage.

What a great day. I can already picture myself driving down some windy mountain road in Austria.