Nope, still not running; starter problems again. It started making grinding noises on the day after I got it home, but sounded fine if I had the plugs out, which is how I was cranking it when trying to find the cause of the "no spark" problem. I finally got spark at the plugs by putting the old condenser back in . . the new one was bad. The coil was bad, too, and the spark plugs are intended for a later model bike with hotter voltage than this bike. In a nutshell, it's no surprise that the previous owner couldn't get it running.

But back to the starter issue: Once I got spark, I put the plugs back in and the horrible grinding noise when turning it over began again. It would not turn over under compression, just buzz, grind and vibrate. Something was really wrong in there. Did Mike maybe put something together wrong?? I took the starter out and found the gear teeth worn and rounded. Maybe it was skipping over it's mating gear? Further inspection found that the drive gear that the starter meshes with was loose in its mounting because the needle bearing it rides in had come completely apart and was laying on the transmission case. CRAP! How am I gonna get that fixed?$? Again, I could take it to Mike or I can try to fix it myself. Well, after some advice from the friendly folks at the Ironhead Sportster Garage discussion group it was determined that this can be done without taking off the primary cover, primary chain and clutch basket, but rather by removing the starter housing as a unit. I can do this! In fact, I've decided that there really isn't anything I can't do with this bike and from now on the only work I'm sending out to have done will be machine-shop fabrication. I bought this to work on, and that's what I'm going to do, for better or worse.

We'll see how this goes. I'll start on it the next warm, non-rainy day I get.

On the "New Parts" front, I bought a brand new King tank for the bike yesterday on eBay. Why new? Because it was only $10 more than those crazy flea-bay buyers are paying for rusty used tanks! I just sold my slightly-rusted old custon-painted Sportster tank for $127.50 on eBay and bought a NEW King tank for $85! Does this make any sense? I guess it just depends on what you're looking for. I'd rather start with a clean tank. No matter what, I'm going to paint it flat black!