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I just pushed the starter button on Succubus.
You can skip the next paragraph is you wanted to avoid my exciting and thought-provoking prose and jump right to the punch line...
For those just tuning in, Succubus is my evil bitch first XS11, that would never run right. Not my wonderful second XS, which is so reliable that it washes itself and changes its own oil. I totally blame the Succubus for its reticence, even though my dumbass modifications were probably at least minorly to blame. Stupid bike. It just never accepted that it should run right with an XJ head and F cams. It was plain stubborn about it (I don't know WHERE that came from). Then I replaced the head with a head from my parts bike. But I managed to twist off a spark plug so bad that it is now stuck forever. If you melted the rest of the head around it that plug would remain. Two billion years from now, when extraterrestrial archaeologists dig around the fragments of my garage, they are going to find that plug (Look, they will say, some dumbass primitive Earthling twisted a spark plug off so bad that it has survived the millenia to continue to mock him! Let us all laugh now at his expense! Hahahahah). So I recently acquired another replacement head from one of our recently reunited brothers. I put it on a couple weeks ago. I did nothing else during the intervening two weeks only because I knew as long as I did not push that starter button then I could assume that all was right and Succubus was ready.
Welcome back to all my readers who saw the length of that last paragraph and decided that life is too short for such a lavish expenditure of time. Anyway, I pushed the button today. At first Succubus did not start - mainly because during reassembly I had apparently decided that things would be all neater and stuff if the coil on the left fired both cylinders to the left and vice versa for the right. That didn't work out. I switched the wires and hit the button again.
PUNCHLINE
Welcome back to all my readers who saw the length of those last TWO paragraphs, got a little pale, and scrolled down to the BIG FINISH.
It kicked right over. It idled very well on high choke. It smoked a little, but it was on high choke. This idling is especially nice because with the XJ head if I put on high choke the engine would go from 0 to 6,000 rpm like immediately. Now it works like it is supposed to.
I cry for happy.
This is a phenomenon that always amazes me. I have restored (OK, more like resurrected) about 10 bikes over the last seven years. Every time any of them starts for the first time I am flabbergast and frightened, because I know I will ride it. I will ride it fast, and I will be trusting my life and health to a guy who thinks you can run both left side cylinders off the same coil. But when it first happens I am like a puppy who just found the food container open - all slobbery and waggy and (deleted for taste). I do this with the garage door closed.
Patrick
You can skip the next paragraph is you wanted to avoid my exciting and thought-provoking prose and jump right to the punch line...
For those just tuning in, Succubus is my evil bitch first XS11, that would never run right. Not my wonderful second XS, which is so reliable that it washes itself and changes its own oil. I totally blame the Succubus for its reticence, even though my dumbass modifications were probably at least minorly to blame. Stupid bike. It just never accepted that it should run right with an XJ head and F cams. It was plain stubborn about it (I don't know WHERE that came from). Then I replaced the head with a head from my parts bike. But I managed to twist off a spark plug so bad that it is now stuck forever. If you melted the rest of the head around it that plug would remain. Two billion years from now, when extraterrestrial archaeologists dig around the fragments of my garage, they are going to find that plug (Look, they will say, some dumbass primitive Earthling twisted a spark plug off so bad that it has survived the millenia to continue to mock him! Let us all laugh now at his expense! Hahahahah). So I recently acquired another replacement head from one of our recently reunited brothers. I put it on a couple weeks ago. I did nothing else during the intervening two weeks only because I knew as long as I did not push that starter button then I could assume that all was right and Succubus was ready.
Welcome back to all my readers who saw the length of that last paragraph and decided that life is too short for such a lavish expenditure of time. Anyway, I pushed the button today. At first Succubus did not start - mainly because during reassembly I had apparently decided that things would be all neater and stuff if the coil on the left fired both cylinders to the left and vice versa for the right. That didn't work out. I switched the wires and hit the button again.
PUNCHLINE
Welcome back to all my readers who saw the length of those last TWO paragraphs, got a little pale, and scrolled down to the BIG FINISH.
It kicked right over. It idled very well on high choke. It smoked a little, but it was on high choke. This idling is especially nice because with the XJ head if I put on high choke the engine would go from 0 to 6,000 rpm like immediately. Now it works like it is supposed to.
I cry for happy.
This is a phenomenon that always amazes me. I have restored (OK, more like resurrected) about 10 bikes over the last seven years. Every time any of them starts for the first time I am flabbergast and frightened, because I know I will ride it. I will ride it fast, and I will be trusting my life and health to a guy who thinks you can run both left side cylinders off the same coil. But when it first happens I am like a puppy who just found the food container open - all slobbery and waggy and (deleted for taste). I do this with the garage door closed.
Patrick
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