Leapfrog's Journal: Fire issues forth again from the mouth of mighty Vulcan!

It runs! I disassembled the carburetors, cleaned out the jets, replaced the float valves and bowl gaskets ($36 for the rebuild kit), polished every piece to a high gleam with immensely toxic solvents ($5 at the local auto parts store), replaced the petcock with a brand new one ($60), fished pipe cleaners through the whole mess until all the pipes were clean, charged the battery, then reassembled the whole mess.

And then, I took two steps back and gingerly pressed the "Start" button.

It fired! and then promptly roared up to about 4000rpm. Whoops. Apparently, someone had set the idle unusually high to compensate for the plugged pilot jets. A few hasty turns later, it was happily chugging away at an appropriately low speed. I took it for a ride around the block and was pleasantly surprised at how much go it still has. I am much happier now, at least as it relates to the motorcycle. I think I'll be riding it this weekend.

On the bad side, it sounds like something is rattling around in the clutch housing, like a loose screw or a rock or something. I really ought to take that apart and figure out what's causing the sporadic noises down there, before it really jams something up.

Be well, do good work, keep in touch.