Actually I don't have a lot of play, in fact the cable will barely move when it's at rest and I wiggle the cable at the clutch body. But it let the clutch be fully relaxed. Man it has so much power now. It's a real joy to ride. Though I still think with all the slipping it was doing (and getting worse every hour) that I'll need to rebuild some time. I did look up some videos and yeah, super simple.

Well, now that I got it riding great, thanks to ya'lls help. I now have a new and scarier issue. Headed out to the supermarket this evening. Only to have my lights go out while on the side highway going 50mph. No street lights, no moon, all cloud cover. Friggen pitch black. I could see just enough of the road in front of me that I could see I was clear to pull over at one of the intersections. Poked around for a minute and they just popped back on. But they flickered a few more times after that. Now I get to chase down an electrical problem. I'm thinking it might be a loose connection on the fuse panel because I notices some lose wires there when I was working on the gas tank at first. So I'll start there. I've also noticed that sometimes the tail light won't come on at first till I've jiggled the key a bit. I hate electrical problems.

if 'jiggling' the key makes your tail light flicker then thats a good place to start eh?

For the tail light yes, but it never seemed to effect the headlight. That was the first thing I did when the lights went out was jiggle the key a bit but nothing happened.

So I dug into this headlight issue a little tonight, hopefully enough to have fixed it. Checking the fuses the headlight fuse (witch also controls the instrument lights) came out in pieces. The fuse wire seemed to hold on but the glass broke up quite easily. Also one of the wires was very loose. I put in a new fuse and crimped the connector on the wire a little. Then I pulled the headlamp out of the assembly and had to chase off a couple spiders and clean their webs out.

I straighetned out the wires to trace them and wiggle them about for a bit. I managed to get the headlamp to flicker off once when I messed with the connector that went to the handlebar controller. But it only went out once and never again.

I messed around with the ignition but that only turned them out when it turned off the bike. I'm hoping the fuse was the issue. I poked and prodded around the wire bundle as best I could with no results. Only time will tell if I fixed the issue.

yeah good puma, maybe just go for little rides at dusk rather than darkness until you have confidence

Got a new strange affliction now. For some reason the bike acts like it’s running out of gas at odd times even when I know I have plenty of fuel. It’ll start to sputter and cough and if I pull in the clutch and idle the engine dies. If I switch to reserve or put it on the prime setting for a minute it will run fine again. I’m wondering if I have a vacuum issue. I have a new fuel valve in it and the carbs have been thoroughly cleaned.

Anyway to test the vacuum line while it runs?

maybe check your tank is venting properly, is there a vent tube kinked or trapped perhaps, when it happens...is it cured if you stop and open the filler cap?

There are no vent tubes. Only two lines off the fuel cock, one to the carbs and one to the vacuum line. And if I turn the tank upside down with fuel in it and the cap shut tight it still leaks fuel out so it must be able to suck air in.

is the pipe for the vac line in good condition with nice tight connections at both ends?

If you have a vaccum pump put it on the tank valve and check your fuel flow possibly the diaphram is gone bad. To check your vaccume while running you can put a vac T in line and hook up a vac gauge to it.

Well, it's a new fuel cock so the diaphram should be fine. Thanks for the idea about a T line. I'm sure I can rig something up and borrow a vacuum gauge.

Aye puma , a good way to test vacume petcocks is to disconect all hoses. insert a syrnge on the vac line , draw syrnge to open petcock,. you can see how much flow comes thru,

That'll be good for testing the valve but not whether or not the engine is generating enough vacuum.