Yesterday I spent most of the day, 16 hours, putting the Indian back together. It started out innocently enough with a stint of valve lapping. One of the intake valves would NOT lap in. After an hour of one valve I noticed that the edge of the valve was getting lapped as well. The seat had been cut in so far that edge of the valve was in contact with the surface as well. some quick work with the dremel relieved the edge and within 10 minutes the valve was lapped in. Since I had honed the cylinders the day before all I had to do was wash off the grease and install the pistons, not. I had been waiting to get the rings before I started working on the bike and what do you know but the heads are full of carbon, grease and so are the pistons. Back to the solvent tank, although this time I bought a box of those nitrile gloves and my hands were happy not to be tingling after an hour in solvent!

Then I forgot all the greasy nuts and bolts that were under the bike.

Now I'm ready, but I have no assembly oil, nothing. I used to have all kinds of oil, but now that I use Synthetic on the cars and the Victory, there was no plain old natural friction type oil. Finally I pulled out my dad's old oil can that I had put Pennzoil 30w in a few years ago. Still nice and golden honey colored. The cylinders get a slight coating, just enough to keep them from rusting after the soapy bath and hot water rinse. the wrist pins get a coat of oil as well. No oil on the rings. I want them to seat well, the cylinder wall oil will do fine. The pistons and the cylinders slip on without much fanfare. no broken rings or pinched fingers. Heads are tapped in place, now where's the carburetor? Sitting in the solvent tank as dirty as the day it came off. Cleaned that and mounted. Finally at 9:30pm with the garage door closed and a bit of gas in the priming cups it fired right up, well lets say it went pop pop vroom. I had no oil on board so I did that three times.

After the Dulzura ride I stopped on the way home and got the requisite 50w for the oil tank. I pushed it out on to the street and fettled around a bit and it sputtered an popped and settled into sort of an idle. I hit the gas and BLAH it dies. more fettling and it gets better. I ride it up the street sputtering and shifting. Just when I think it's really going to run right it dies. Turn around and coast back. I rode it up the street several times with different settings with the same results. I worked on it for a while longer trying things with the carb and cables; once the throttle cable got stuck on full throttle and I had to hit the compression release...

I finally gave up for the day, my leg couldn't kick any more, and I'm pretty sure I need a carb float and needle. At least I finally got to ride it. Now I'll be looking for the manual to see what the real settings are supposed to be and also give the magneto the once over.

KJS