I bought the bike on the 19th of December. It was an eBay find and I was taking a real gamble buying it sight-unseen. The seller seemed honest about his lack of Harley know-how, and was very helpful in checking a few things out for me so I wasn't too worried. He even delivered to bike from Valley, Nebraska at no extra charge.

It's history is a bit sketchy. It apparently had belonged to the wife of a friend of the seller. After a divorce, the wife no longer wanted the bike and it was traded to the seller for a paint job on a truck, or some such barter agreement. It had sat for over two years to the seller's knowledge, but the last date on the license plate is 1996. He was going to restore it himself, but time, money and health forced the sale. He had no information on any rebuild history.

It could have been worse. I could have bought a dozen boxes of parts.

I did get a few extra parts in the deal. A nice pair of Harley Davidson saddle bags (I'll keep these) and a nice custom-painted Sportster peanut gas tank (which I'll sell). Also included was probably the most important accessory of all . . an original Harley Davidson Service Manual!

When the seller brought it over he tried to show me that it would at least turn over, but the battery was cold and it wouldn't do it. The bike looked better than the picture he'd put up on eBay, though, so I was happy.

In the next few days after charging the battery, the attempts to start it began. A little oil down the spark plug holes to loosen things up and it turned over fairly well. A little weak, but the "H" in Sportster XLH stands for "High Compression" so it's never going to crank real fast. I checked the fuel petcock and found it closed. I opened it and the carb began to leak gas all over the driveway. Closed the petcock again and tried to start it (at least I knew it had gas at this point). It started and ran for about three seconds! COOL! It WILL run! But the carb needed to be rebuilt, so off to Bear's for a rebuild kit.

The carburetor that came on the bike is a late '70s model Keihen that's generally considered to be worthless. Some might say rebuilding it is a waste of time and money. But I'm trying to spend as little as possible to get the bike running so I can determine if there are more costly repairs looming ahead. Besides, a rebuild kit is only about $20.

To my surprise, in rebuilding the carb I found that all internal parts were new. Somebody had already tried this, perhaps many times. Screw heads were stripped and the accelerator pump still leaked even after new gaskets were put in. This carb is toast. The plan was to put a much newer CV carb from a late model Harley on it sometime down the road. That time is now.

In the meantime, the starter is making some bad noises, so off to Hunt Electric Company to have it rebuilt. A new starter motor is about $160. This should come in around half that and be just as good as new.