OK, so I have a new motorcycle to accompany the BMW already owned. But, what would people say if I showed up without the quintessential american bike. I had to get it operational for what would be several days of riding in Sturgis. I was able to get it started, after some battery recharging, but the thing ran so rich (or lean), I could only assume the carberator needed some cleaning and the gas needed replacing. I didn't trust riding it out to the shop, so I put it on the trailer and ran the back roads to Meridian. I dropped it off and said "Give a bike I can trust".
I was able to get it back in a few days as of which I had Sandra drop me off with my gear so I could ride it home. From the BMW and the Harley, the Harley is a different feel and it was quite foreign to me in the comfort zone. I'm going the back roads away from traffic. The bike rand fairly well, but had a couple of "coughs" during the stops at the lights. I was writing this off as excess bad gas in the system and maybe some exhaust issues. I'm sure a few rides out will remedy this when I cycle new fuel through it.
Throughout the course of a couple weeks, I did some small rides and the bike was actually starting to feel more natural to me. However, the "coughs" still occurred even after a couple of tank refuels. Ultimately, I found it was running rich on accelleration and lean on idle.
On one ride, I drove it around, got back to home, put down the kickstand and to my surprise the primary case dropped all of it's oil. All of it! Looking down the primary case cover was only being held by one screw (it should be secured with four). It became apparent to me, these were not secured when the service folks had replaced all the fluids. Well, OK, these things happen.
I had them pick the bike up and bring it back with new fluids. I did big test ride and checked the bolts. They appear to hold. The only thing not resolved was the lean "cough" and the bogging on accelleration. I did some research and found that I may have a pilot-jet issue that makes my idle run lean. I ordered the parts and have done a slew of YouTube videos on rebulding the carbaruator when I get back from Sturgis. For now, I did replace the air-fuel mixture screw with one that doesn't require taking the breather cover off. I think I'm becoming a "Wrench".