10 July 2004 - I took the bike out for a ride today. It was running well and I was about to roll over 10km on the odometer when the bike quit. I determined I was not getting spark. I checked the magneto and it was not rotating when I kicked the engine over. The chain that drives the magneto had come off and is now down in the engine. I can only assume it broke. I have to go buy one of those magnetic rods to fish it out. I decided to go ahead a drain the oil to see how the engine is doing internally. It was really clean with no particles visible.

11 July 2004 - I fished out the magneto timing chain and parts with the magnetic rod I bought this morning. It turns out that the nipple on the locking link broke off causing the link to come off and the chain to fall off. I will order a new chain plus a spare link as the original chain looks fine (This will give me a spare to carry).

29 July 2004 - I finally received the new timing chain. The chain came with a reinforcing link that goes under the clip. This should really help the long-term reliability. I installed the chain and took the bike out for a spin. All went well and I actually got up into third gear this time. The repaint on the headers also held up on the ride.

8 August 2004 - This morning I took the second ride since repairing the magneto chain. The weather was beautiful and the bike rode great. I got into fourth. I think the gearing for the repo speedometer is off. According to it I was doing 100kph, which I bet was more like 60kph. Here are some more photo's after the ride. The bike is staying quite oiltight. But the carb and petcock are leaking a little gas, which is putting the trademark stains on the engine and transmission.

20 August 2004 - Installed lower engine guard. I took the bike for a 10-mile ride, after a few miles it lost power similar to running out of gas. I took a look at the inline fuel filter and there was gas in the line, but also an air bubble. I kicked it over and it immediately started up. Three possibilities, a small carb blockage, loss of spark due to magneto, loss of spark due to the shut off switch shorting. As I continue riding around I will try a few experiments to see who the culprit is. By the way it was a great ride.

6 September 2004 - I removed the inline fuel filter as my first test. After two 10-mile rides in the last two days, it appears that I may have been right on the fuel filter problem. I had no power losses. I did encounter a new problem though. A couple of times when I came to a stop with the throttle released the engine speed was high. I think the slide was sticking a bit. I am going to disassemble the carb and polish up the slide and slide walls in the carb to remove any burrs.

I disassembled the carb to find the problem, I think that the slide may not have been hanging up after all. When I pulled it apart, I found another cable end in the cable entrance of the carb. When I first took the carb apart this was wedged in tight and I did not know it was in there.

I think this was moving around underneath my new cable and end and wedging in the slide in different positions. I went ahead and polished the slide up and the inside of the carb where the slide fits.

Since I have torn down the carb again, I am going to try and find a source for the wear items beside the jets.

The needle (23) fits into the end of the float. When the float rises with the gas level, the needle goes into (31) and stops gas flow into the carb. As you can see the needle has a nice worn flat ring. It does seal the gas flow, but it is not right. (7) is the air intake for the choke. It is fine, but could not hurt to replace if I can find one.

These are the gaskets in my carb. Would be nice to find these as well.

12 September 2004 - I found that the above parts are not going to be easy to find. The old saying "If it's not broke, don't fix it" hold true now. I reassembled the carb, but this time I put a little gasket sealer on the carb jet gasket, and the float bowl cover gasket. Nice, it does not leak gas any more. I took the bike out for another ride, and it was quite enjoyable. I did not have the high idle problem again.