[x-bird]

aren't all children of the 70s/80s? LOL
Now, off the dang bikes and Vans and back to the important stuff ...
Finished up the steering/uni-joint mess and adjustable shock mounts. Did some test driving today and promptly split one of the steering rod ends open. Just so happens i grabbed the old Scag clutch kickback rod and rod end off the workbench (from up at work) today and it was an exact replacement in terms of rod size and thread direction. It's also way stronger. So a nice 2 minute fix. Pulled it out again and promptly snapped one of the new rod end mounts off the steering arm (it was only tack welded) Pulled it back into the garage and moved the rod to my original location, adjusted it and pulled back out again. Steering got "unusual" and straight-lined me into a tree ... the steering column hangar (an old yerf spindle) just basically twisted right over. Pulled back into the garage and welded some support plates to it and the upper tube. Pulled it back out again ... Beat the living daylights out of it and i'm pretty pleased with it. The universal joint has too much slop in it, i have a plan or two to fix that. I changed the air intake, cut off the elbow, it runs better, but still sputters out quite often and is carbon sooty again. I have an idea for a final attempt. It's like this carb wants nothing attached to it. I think the intake pipe feeding it is causing some type of turbulence that's killing the venturi effect of the carb body. Pic and video (shot some static and a quick walk of the woods) by later tonight (takes forever to load, edit and upload to the u-tube.