T-Bone is correct. Old brake shoes can De laminate from the metal ( even when you think they are OK,)
and pitch you over the bars..Which is never any fun.

Get some shoes. Cheaper than a Hospital bill.

Ordered more parts and a few were in stock so I grabbed those!

Ok I’ll get some new brake shoes.


In the end I went with these 2.75 cos they were cheap.

the rear guard is a bit damaged so it’s a bit wider than it should be it does look a bit goofy. Ah well I’ll change to 3s at a later date I suppose.

nice on the seat. I got a Double seat on the way. see how well it fits. I'm almost happy with mine in function. The carb slide spring is tired. no spring back on the throttle. so I'm looking for a spring there. Got a oil leak from the auto mix tank.

I look forward to hearing how yours is going!

There’s a spring in the throttle cable divider to oil pump as well you could put a stiffer one in there.

Most of the time it’s just crusty cables. I pull the cable out and then spray it with Teflon dry lube then solder a new nipple on. If the cable is rusty or liner is damaged i just make my own replacements.

You can always cut a coil off and stretch a tired spring to give it a higher spring rate.

The original Candy Yellow or Gold or whatever comes through so nice in your photos. I'm a sucker for candy colors so this little L5 is looking GREAT!! Nice work, love to see lights working as you showed in your photos!

Thanks the paint is in pretty Bad shape.

When I get some time and funds I’ll respray it. I’ve sprayed a fair bit but never a candy colour. They are hard to do I’ll have to get a few test panels going.

hey guys

got no spark

I have 12v at ignition coil
the breaker wire to ignition coil is not open circuit
the breaker points open and close, measuring between the points I am getting 0.5 ohm and open circuit with closed and open points respectively.

I am thinkign I must have a dead coil, there is continuity from spark plug lead at coil to spark plug.

coil terminal resistance is 8k ohm,

what should it be? couldnt find it in the book..

also anyone got cheap source for good coil replacement

and after some more troubleshooting

it was corroded terminals on ignition coil and also corroded contact breaker points

sanded them up and got spark

then it basically started up straight away really easily!

lots and lots of smoke

idles nicely, dont think the crank seals are too bad.

Now to do all the small jobs putting bits and pieces on and getting it all back together!

Its alive! thats awesome. This bike might just run forever as long as gas and spark can get to it. I got some contact sanding to do myself. Bit to much resistance in the system and the electric start doesn't like to work and blows the main fuse.

Yikes might be a heavy smoker.