Yes.
Your left hand-grip was the Spark Advance, right hand-grip was the Throttle. Both were actual Bowden Cables: no spring return, they stayed where you put them.
Starting drill was easy: close the Choke, turn the motor over once with the starter-crank, open the Choke to halfway or three-quarters, SPARK FORWARD (to retard), crack on a LITTLE Throttle, turn Ignition ON and swing down on the Starter-Crank. She should fire. Immediately, you cranked the Spark Adjustment TOWARD you to advance your timing. Then you waited about 15 seconds and opened the Choke all the way, keeping the motor running with rapid Throttle adjustments. Now she should settle down to a nice quiet buppitta buppitta buppitta.
Heel down on the Clutch, gearshift forward to First, now add throttle, toe down on the Clutch and she starts moving. Heel down, shifter back and through Neutral into Second, toe down to go, same for back into Third.
NOTE: ALL INDIAN CONTROLS WERE THE PRECISE OPPOSITE TO HARLEY CONTROLS.
Ignition on the Harleys was lost-spark (both plugs fired at the same time) but the crank had only one throw. The motor was a 45-degree V, so your firing cycle was 'way out of step. It had 4 camshafts (modern Sportster is just a bored, stroked OHV version) and ran 6 to 12 pounds of oil pressure on SAE 50 oil with a dry-sump system like an airplane and modified Ricardo heads: much more efficient than you would think. But with both plugs firing at the same time, when the front cylinder was on compression, the rear cylinder was on intake: SPUT! And when the rear cylinder fired on compression, the front cylinder still was on exhaust so it fired again into the exhaust gas and you got a little "sput". So you were getting BANGSPUTBANGsput repeated about 30 times a second.
But the Spark control you used like I said. Retard for starting, then full Advance and leave it there. If you didn't retard the Spark for starting, the critter would try to throw you over the handlebars.... and she had enough power to do it, too!
During the War, they used to run those on SAE 60 in the really hot weather, SAE 50 for most duty, SAE 40 or 30 when it got well below zero (Fahrenheit scale, mind you!) and when it got REALLY cold, they would add as much as 10% gasoline to the oil, just so you could turn the engine over. There were DR courses out at CFB Shilo, out in the sandhills of the Carberry Desert.
The casualty rate among Dispatch Riders was staggering, I was told by guys who were actually there. Fortunately, I did my riding in peacetime, when a Harley was only a target for pickup trucks and drunk drivers...... although I did know a man who lost 2 of them in one day to an MG-42. He was lucky with the third motorcycle.
Now, I got this scar here from attacking that Ford truck........ and this one from..... and these others are from......
DAMN! But those things were FUN!
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