Today I roughly put the carburetors together and got them mounted. It was a little tough, so I ended up removing the air filter boots to get everything in place.

With a little gasoline and the flick of a switch and the XJ came to life. It immediately rev'd up to 4k rpm, so I cut the choke. Then started it a few more times using the throttle to keep it between 1.5 and 2k rpm.

There is still quite a bit of work to get it running smooth. First of all, I'll need to get all the gaskets for the petcock and fuel filter replaced so that I don't end up with big puddles of gasoline in the garage again.

So, until next weekend. I think I am done.

So, that luggage rack on the back was bugging me. The first thing I did was yank it off of there. It is now in the stack of random motorcycle parts to be sold or tossed as these projects get finished.

Today this bike got it's first oil and new filter in two decades, new spark plugs with some oil down the cylinders to help the bone dry pistons along, brake fluid in the soon to be replaced rubber hoses and a fresh el cheapo battery from wal-mart.

So, with all of that done I was able to put the bike on the center stand and turn the wheel by hand. The idea here was to slowly get the pistons to move back and forth a little before I hit them with the starter. Then after a little movement I clicked the starter to see if it would even think about going. Luckily, I heard the wonderful sound of the starter motor coming to life. There are no carburetors or fuel, so it wasn't a real shot at starting. I just couldn't resist hitting the button.

No more until it's all together.

The brake caliper moves freely and actually feels quite firm with the fresh fluid. I can see the lines bulge when I pull in the lever. They will certainly not last long. I just want brakes for moving the bike around. If they had been functional last week I probably wouldn't have dropped the bike pulling it off the back of my truck.

Last, I put in about 2.5L of synthetic oil. It will probably lead to a thousand leaks but I'll deal with that when the time comes. Since I wasn't able to run the engine the oil is up past the sight glass. I must remember to top it off after I get it to run the first time.

That's it for now. I need to order fork seals, rear shocks, a 530 140 link chain and carburetor boots before the first test ride. Getting parts is half the trouble!