She's alive!!!

[coffee_brake]

My baby's alive!
Sorry to go on and on about it, but this motorcycle is very special. A year of dust and my dedication to getting her back on the road never failed. If ever I considered selling her, I'd remember the first time I saw the sun on the red paint and perish the thought. I've been here keeping up with all ya'll and your Nighthawks, and it was sometimes awful to read how you all were riding and wrenching and discovering, and I was just dusting off my baby's tank in the garage.
During the year that my beloved '92 CB750 was in storage, I completely rebuilt the carburetors. I added stabilizer to the gasoline the first week that I knew she'd have to sit, then as the months stretched on, I emptied the tank and added more gas so the tank wouldn't rust, and stabilized it again.
I put the carbs back on the boots so funk wouldn't get in the engine, and she sat and sat through a whole year. I would dream about riding my Nighthawk. I would talk to it every time I went to the garage for something. She was moved around every so often so there wouldn't be flat spots on the tires. If bikes were sentient, this one would know I was definately coming back to her.
I installed the carbs this week (thanks for the hair dryer tip, that along with the ratchet straps pulling the airbox into place did the trick!) and dripped a little oil into each cylinder, put on a new fuel line and, after all this time, turned the petcock "on." It took awhile to get fuel to the carbs (this system could use a petcock with "prime" on it). I borrowed the battery from the Concours, my daily rider for the whole last year, and propped it up by my girl. She smoked out that oil in the cylinders like a freight train, but she started! And she ran really well, considering I haven't synched my rebuilt carbs yet!  I got a little emotional, I'll admit it, because this is my favorite bike ever, and because I was proud of my first carb rebuild and the measures I took to keep the bike in good shape paid off.

I'm scraping up what I need to get her a new battery (the old one, conveniently, completely died the very week I knew I had to put her away) and bare-bones insurance, and then I'll ride her through the winter along with the Connie. There won't be a happier rider out there than the one on this bright red Nighthawk 750!

[Maxx]

Glad to hear you got it running. Hearing it fire up is like spanking a new born bay and hearing the cries.

[detdrbuzzard]

great job jenn but put the fuel valve on reserve next time it bypasses the vaccume

[DesignFlaw06]

Good to see you back. Have fun!

[ROJ]

Glad to hear you were able to get her back on the road. Have a blast.

[coffee_brake]

Heeheehee thanks everybody, I'm tickled pink.  My throttle cables are really sticky, the return cable isn't returning, no matter how I adjust it. I lubed it before she went down and I lubed it again today, may just have to ride it awhile to get it all working.

If "reserve" bypasses the vacuum, wouldn't it be possible to hydrolock a piston if the engine was off with the petcock in reserve? 'Cause I've done that plenty of times and never hurt anything... The manual says to check the vacuum with the know either in ON or RESERVE, so they both operate on vacuum, right?
My Concours has a PRIME setting, and it *WILL* hydrolock, or at least fill the crankcase with gasoline, if you don't put it back to ON or RESERVE after you prime it. 

[CraigF]

Heeheehee thanks everybody, I'm tickled pink.  My throttle cables are really sticky, the return cable isn't returning, no matter how I adjust it. I lubed it before she went down and I lubed it again today, may just have to ride it awhile to get it all working.

If "reserve" bypasses the vacuum, wouldn't it be possible to hydrolock a piston if the engine was off with the petcock in reserve? 'Cause I've done that plenty of times and never hurt anything... The manual says to check the vacuum with the know either in ON or RESERVE, so they both operate on vacuum, right?
My Concours has a PRIME setting, and it *WILL* hydrolock, or at least fill the crankcase with gasoline, if you don't put it back to ON or RESERVE after you prime it. 

I know when my vacuum line was bad after I replaced my tank, it would not work on reserve either.  So I'm going to have to say based on my experience, the petcock on a CB700SC does rely on vacuum in the reserve position.

[luckylindy]

I'm glad you got your NH running again.  People who don't ride probably think we're crazy with our emotional attachment to our machines but they are much more than transportation to me.  Roll on.

[MrF]

Glad to hear it's up and running again!