Today was a good day.  I re-soldiered the suspect connection, used some heat shrink as well as some liquid tape I picked up from Lowe's today during my lunch break (thanks Batman!).  Crisis averted--electrical problem fixed.

Next step, I rolled the bike out onto the driveway and fired her up, showing my 8 yr old daughter how to adjust the air mix screw.  To be honest, I'm not sure where I landed, but it's somewhere between 2.5 turns out and maximum "outness".  I'm pretty sure I need to step up the idle jet at some point.

...However...

The bike ran great.  I took it for a spin around my neighborhood to warm it up and returned to my driveway.  After being warmed up, it tried to sputter and die (and not because I had the petcock in the wrong position like a dumb a$$), so I increases the idle speed screw ever slow slightly.  She was purring like a kitten.

So off I went.  She ran great.  I finally got to take my first bike ride (I just passed my motorcycle safety course) and it was awesome!  I never got over 35 mph, but that's ok.  Baby steps  

Thanks Batman, Justin and others who gave some truly sage advice!

Barrett

B-Will wrote on 06/23/17 at 11:27:00:



Before you go tearing into the carb, try adjusting the mixture screw a little richer.  Just make sure the screw isn't out more than a total of three turns from bottom, at which point, you'll need to go up a size on the pilot.

Yes, there is a danger of losing the screw more than three turns out.  Be careful that you very lightly bottom it out when you screw it in so you don't damage it.  More info can be found in the tech section.