May 22 2004 - Today is the culmination of a years worth of work (pretty much anyway). The photo's below are of the completed bike prior to installing the battery and starting the bike for the first time.

Still waiting on a set of mufflers to arrive.

I used a period glass reflector in the lower rear fender for increased visibility at night.

The wiring is hanging loose for the battery. I have installed an inline waterproof fuse holder in the positive battery wire. This gives me some protection if something were to go awry with the electrical system.

For reference I am showing the location of the frame serial number.

After these photo's were taken I rolled the bike off of the stand onto the garage floor. I installed the battery and made sure all fluids were to the correct level. I poured about a quart of gas into the tank and turned on the petcock. I could see gas flowing into the carburetor through the clear inline fuel filter I installed. I opened the choke and hit the carb tickler. I kicked the engine over a couple of times with the bike off to allow some fuel mixture to enter the cylinders. I turned the bike on, the charge lamp in the headlamp came on. I kick the bike over and it immediately started up for the first time possibly in decades. There was this horrible intermittent squealing that came from the magneto. I shut the bike off thinking I may have a problem. I kicked the bike over a couple of times with the ignition off and heard no noise. The kick felt good and free so I started the bike again. After it ran for a minute or so the squealing went away. I am assuming the magneto was seating everything in place. The reason I am not so concerned about it is when I got it back from rebuild and rotated the shaft by hand I could feel some rough spots, or resistance. I will say this, the initial squeal made my heart jump a good bit. I let the bike run a bit more, watching the charge lamp go out with increased rpm. It seems to be running smooth, but it sure is loud in my garage. I plan on starting it again and letting it run in the garage under no load a couple of more times to get everything seating in place and checking out everything to make sure I don't have any problems. If all goes well, I may take it for an initial ride sometime in the next week (after I get some mufflers).