I finally got a new kickstart gear for the B29 and was able to start the bike and take it for a short ride, here are the observations of a first ride on a Douglas:
The engine is a little hard to start, but runs nicely and is very smooth. Much more so than my Triumph Twin or any of the singles (two and four stroke) that I have.
The gearbox is a little clunky but works well and is pretty quiet.
The primary chain rattles on the chaincase and will need some tweaking to get it quieter.
The brakes are horrible, which brings me to my question: They are supposed to have a servo action, so I took off the front wheel to look at it, and it appears that the direction of the wheel rotation for the servo action would be with the bike going backwards. Attached is a photo of the brake band hanging from the front fork, looking at it, and then the picture in the manual showing wheel rotation for the servo action, the bike would indeed need to go backwards. Any thoughts on this are really appreciated, this one has me confused!
[Attachments converted to linked images. 25Nov21 -Doug, Admin]