This is my army buddy, the Rodney, 1972 Xs2. I purchased the bike in 1981 from the widow of the original owner. The owner rode it for about 5000 miles over the time he owned it and then passed. It sat in a garden shed for six years before she placed the advertisement to sell it. I arrived, prepared.. moved out the lawn mover, snow blower and other yard tools. Check'd the oil, hand pump'd the tires, toss'd in a fresh battery, drained the carbs.. fuel looked ok.. this was before the time of the current " white death " gas we have today. Pull'd the plugs.. toss'd in fresh go juice and hit the finger starter several times. Toss'd the plugs back in and about the 3rd kick. Everything worked. I bought it. I didn't even haggle on the price, $650.oo. I put the odometer to 18,000 and HAD to sell it and a 1971 Xs1b before the soon to be X could add it to her list of " property ".
Last fall at 25,000 the Rodney want'd the engine gone through. So we did a 2nd over re-bore, gasket seals.. and when through the carbs.. but by then O'Man winter ruled. We did fire it up in his shop for a few minutes.
Today.. was the Big Day... even at a warm sunny morn'n of..29 degrees. It ran fine.. cold blooded... but he did 10 minutes or so... needs to adjust the carbs. toss a time'n light on it since I used my 1.5 peepers to set the time'n last November. Hopefully the post build gremlins are few and simple.
