CB125S "Susie" Take Two

[CALfeRacer]

Got home for Thanksgiving and since everything is locked down I got some time to work on the bike. RedKote job went to shit but did expose a couple of pinholes on the bottom of the tank. Plan is to pick up one of the ebay universal tanks and make it work. Tried starting with the "gas in a water bottle" method again w/ a new knockoff carb and still nothing. Got it close to starting a couple times but no-go. Compression is good, fuel is getting to the engine (plug has gas on it when pulled after extended kicking), and spark is there but seems a bit weak.
Wondering if having a battery hooked up would give it enough spark to fire just enough that I can actually play with the idle/mixture screws and get something happening. Might just try to pick up a 6V battery and try, was also thinking about just biting the bullet and ordering a coil and R/R to do the 12V conversion since I already have a spare set of 350 windings.
I'll be back in a few weeks for Christmas so will provide an update then.

 

[CALfeRacer]

Merry Christmas everyone!
Been working on the bike for a couple of days, made a pan to mount the battery under the seat, and started working on mounting the new tank. Rear mount is done, just need to make some front mounts to work with the Honda frame. Unfortunately my welder is back down in California so I’ll need to be a bit more creative!
Once the tank is on I’ll try to fire it up and report back here.

 

[CALfeRacer]

It runs!!! Spent a day working on it, found out the pin for the mechanical advancer for the timing managed to fall out of the cam so the advancer was free spinning, put that back in, re-set the point gap, timing, and valve timing then just kicked for hours tweaking the carb until it ran and idled. It was very satisfying to finally get it running!!! Only problem is that it is LOUD with the basically useless baffle in the exhaust tip. I will definitely need to get a real muffler for it and tweak the mounting bracket to pull it a bit further away from the clutch adjuster and cable.
Next step will be getting the tank mounted, then sanded down for some clear coat. I might take another stab at lining it, but am a little apprehensive about that after the epic failure last time. Once I either make or order a shorter front brake cable I should be able to take it for a test ride!