I have a 77 Batavus HS50 that I was given last month. Been working on it for a while, have Fred's Guide... and it really WANTS to start now. I've replaced the petcock, fuel line, spark plug AND boot, pedals, de-rusted, fixed the clutch lever (somebody tightened it so much it wouldnt release!), checked for shorts in the wiring, thumb-tested compression (no guage- but blew my thumb away nicely) and cleaned the points. I've also started painting it since the OG paint was shot. Last time it was running was 2001 according to sticker registration. I can get it almost running roll-starting it down a hill, and it softly runs for a few seconds then dies. This is a big improvement from doing nothing at all. The flywheel cover is gone and has rust but the coils look clean and the points are cleaned and seem fine. There IS a leak near the carburetor. I know from building motorized bicycles that new engines just take some time to "catch" and run... do I need to keep rolling down that hill till it goes or am I missing something? (which is my guess, since this is all still new to me) I dont have a lot of tools yet and I'm still in the "just started learning" phase. Need some help from the "been doing this for a while" folks like yourselves.
Thanks for the advice ahead of time.
Dave
