Change in priorities

Yesterday I'd pulled the head off my cylinder to clean the valves, with a plan to clean and lap them. One of the nice things about having such a small engine, of course, is that you can do that by hand. This morning I took a wire brush and cleaned the carbon deposits off, then lapped the valve seats with a bit of extra white toothpaste (the whitening means a higher silica content- bad for enamel, good for old valves). After re-installing the cylinder, and in the process discovering that A) I need a torque wrench and B) it's a damn lucky thing I have a box of spare engine parts with extra cylinder studs lying around in the garage....

This happened:

The kicking you see me doing to get the bike going at first belies a clutch problem- she won't idle in gear, so I have to get some movement going manually first... but the engine runs and the drivetrain does work. Two years, and a couple weeks of dedicated evenings got the job done. I'm ecstatic- it means now I can justify taking time to work on cosmetics, minor parts, etc. Hence the title, as a matter of fact- now my priority isn't getting the engine to run at all, but getting it to run like a Cub should.

More to come- I'm working up a list of things I need and things I want to be ready to take her on real roads, and I'm starting to source where I can get the mirrors, speedo cable, etc I'll need.

Good day today.

-The Proprietor