Subject: RE: I did it!!! First street ride
Author: Bruce Giller
Date: May 2, 2005, 9:59 AM
Post ID: 1718798917
AJ,
Congratulations on getting your Ambassador up and running ... all
with your two hands. The feeling accomplishment will be with your every
time you crank her up for a ride. Or even just think about a ride...
Since my memory capacity has been exceeded along time ago, I've
developed a "positional" mantra for heel 'n toe shifting. My toe is
'facing' forward, I want to go forward by upshifting. My heel is 'facing'
backward, I want to slow down by downshifting; if I downshift enough I'll
run into 1st gear.
There is seal inside your petcock that after 34 years is pretty hard
a brittle. It can cause your petcock to leak even in the off position.
Easy enough to check it by disconnecting the fuel line and seeing if it
drips with the petcock in the off position.
There is a large nut on the petcock that you can tighten to put more
pressure on the gasket but in turn makes the handle hard to turn. And
usually is a short term solution.
And even if your petcocks work, if your carb float doesn't close all
the way, the fuel in the lines will eventually make its way into the carb
bowl and flood the engine.
I operate one of the few cottage industry for loopframe petcock
gaskets (my motto "Billions ready to be sold!"). I have hand-punched Viton
seals for two different styles of petcocks ($.50 each). John C. has some
Teflon gaskets that are commercially manufactured but I'm unsure of his
price.
Bruce
'72 Eldo
-----Original Message-----
From: AJ Huff [mailto:ajh-@earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 12:19 PM
To: Loopfram-@topica.com
Subject: I did it!!! First street ride
I don't know if you guys remember my confusion and difficulty in getting
the bike to go off in first gear. I thougth that toe down was first and
heel down was second, but I figured it out. Heel down is first. Toe down is
2nd, 3rd, 4th. I feel less stupid now.
John or somebody, please tell me more about the pet cocks. I checked that
both were off when I shut the bike off.
AJ Huff
'71 Ambassador
Three Rivers, MI
MGNOC# 19917