Moto Trek: Bultaco: part 2

It's Alive!

Well we got the Bultaco running. Turned out to be a little easier than I thought it would be. Sometimes you just have to get to know a bike in order to get it running and that might have the been the case with the Alpina Bultaco.

But first off, let me explain what steps we took and repairs we made before we buttoned it up and kicked it over. On the last post, we just finished putting the carburetor back together and mounting it back on the bike. The next item on our list was fixing a pinhole in the gas tank.

If you look closely to the image above you can see a pinhole in the center of the gas tank. That had to be repaired. We used Caswell epoxy gas tank sealer for fiberglass tanks to get the job done. The goop comes in two small cans which are mixed together and has the consistency that makes molasses look runny. We only have about a 1-1/2 gallon tank so twelve ounces is all we needed. After plugging the balance tube fittings for the fuel lines with modeling clay, we swirled the epoxy around inside the tank for about 20 minutes (mostly focusing our attention on the area where the pinhole resided).

Once the epoxy dried, we bored out the balance tube fittings with a small piece of wire and reattached the tank to the bike. With the carburetor back in it's proper place and the fuel tank filled up with a gasoline and two stroke mixture, we were in position to try the bike again.

Kick, kick, kick... it still wouldn't run. It chugged a little but nothing more than that. Then Chris came up with a good idea. He depresses the valve allowing the float bowl to fill with gas, opened the throttle and instead of giving the kick short quick jabs, he instead gives the kick a nice sweeping smooth stroke and VAROOOM! the engine is running. While it is running, we closed the idle stop screw on the carburetor all the way and then adjusted the idle mixture until the bike maintained a nice hum and then opened the idle stop a little until the bike was able to idle on it's own without holding open the throttle.

Now comes the fun part. Riding!