During December and January, I finally managed to sneak into the back door of the SSS.
The little blue steed is not too happy though, and there has been a few niggles.
Firstly, the bike would die if I turned the handle bar left at low speed, such as when I pulled into a parking area. This turned out to be due to the choke cable being routed wrongly, each time I turned the handle, the choke was pulled open and the bike died. Easy enough to fix, but this led to another problem. Now the bike would not run smoothly unless I opened the choke a bit. If not, the bike would cut out even at high speed cruising on the highway. I decided to check the carb, and thus removed the carb from the bike. The first part, removing the piece of plastic at the top, turned out to be quite difficult, as the screws were tightened much too tight. I got them loose though, and checked that everthing at the top looked OK.
I then tried the float bowl screws. These two screws took me 3 weeks to get out, something I only managed tonight. So now begins the big clean, checking which jets the carb has in, and finding out why the bike is cutting out at high speed.
After that will come the easy stuff, like front forks and new tyres.
And hopefully, after that, I will have a little blue bike that will take me across the country as reliably as my KLR did for so many years.