[plox]

The nice part about the stainless ones that I picked up from the local Home Depot is the flat head slot. That will give me a lot more leverage to get some torque on the screws in the event they are sized or the phillips slot gets stripped. In the future, if I rebuild the carbs fully, I'll get some good hex head screws.

[plox]

Quick update: Got the engine and frame separated, front fort tubes out, and the swing arm out. Have a few pics I'll share once I get them online. I'm just about done with disassembly (except for the engine parts).

[plox]

Haven't been working on the bike for a while now. Last thing I did was clean the swing arm up. WD-40 works amazingly to remove grease and chain gunk. I lubed up the swing arm bearings with some grease while I was at it. The chain rub guard is in rough shape. I'll probably end up ordering a new one for the rebuild. I've sorted out the parts and gaskets I want to rebuild the engine seals, and I think I've got just about everything now, but want to tear down the head first to see if I missed any small o-rings somewhere that needs replacement.

[plox]

Finally ordered the parts I need for the rebuild. Should have them in a week or two tops, then I will start trying to update more often.

[plox]

Having a lot of trouble getting the old gaskets off the engine covers. Anyone have tips on getting this stuff off? I've been using a razor blade and scraping as much off as I can, but it's almost as if it's glued on. I want to get these edges smooth before re-installation with new gaskets.

Edit - Will be trying to remove the head in the next week or so. I'm a little worried about messing up the timing. Any suggestions?

Kind of hard to see, but if you look closely, there is a lot of excess material on the edges.

[shpielers]

Some people use oil or soap stone to clean up mating surfaces. Don't remember which one it how it's used, but search both of those terms and you should be able to come up with something.

[plox]

Sorry for the huge delay in posts, haven't been very focused on this bike build for a while. Here are the latest updates.

Got the head off after some major struggling and pounding with a rubber mallet. Turns out the oil drain hoses were the main reason for being so stuck on. Going to work on cleaning the valves and pistons a bit. Now the next challenge is getting the cylinder piece off. Any tips for this? Just going to try the usual pounding and pulling until it pops the gasket apart. Looks like there is just one nut holding it on and the dowels.









Bonus - some engine internals:

[plox]

Been cleaning and grinding. So anxious to get this thing back together.

[plox]

Got the pistons back in, the ghetto ring compressors did the job, but wasn't as easy as a real one would have been I bet. Still, for the price, they were perfect! Finally over this hurdle, and now I can start building the rest up. Timing will be the part I'm worried about next. Time to read the manual!

[da91teg]

great work on the motor!

[plox]

Latest updates - engine fully built and put back into frame, exhaust headers on and oil cooler attached. Chain put back on without needing to break the master link thankfully. Just removed the swing arm and threaded it in that way.

[fury8793]

Awesome work! Keep it up!

[plox]

So close!



Brakes gone through completely and cleaned inside and out.

[plox]

I realize now that this should have been in the long term projects section... whoops.

I had replaced all the spark plug wire with some stuff I had laying around from an old build. It's not solid copper core, so I've already ordered new stuff on Ebay to make proper wires. This stuff worked though and the bike runs!



Filled up the carbs with the gas tank, started up right away after figuring out that I didn't have the coil packs plugged in. Drove around the block to test things with just the gas in the carbs, looked extremely silly riding with no gas tank on the bike.



Now I'm having a slight difficulty at idle, nothing major, but it wants to die after it warms up and I take the choke fully off. It might just be fiddling with the idle adjustment screw. Going to balance the carbs properly and replace the spark plug wires with proper solid core ones to see if that helps give a better spark and do anything for the issue.

Got this batch of oil dirt cheap. $3 per quart only!

[plox]

Well, I'm officially done with this project. This will be my last update... I ended up only using the manual to get torque specs for the engine bolts and timing instructions, just about everything else went back together with some common sense and mechanical inclination.

Bike is running well and been driven about 50 miles so far. No issues yet other than a little trouble starting this morning. I'll be back next time I have something go wrong, haha.



Thanks for the help to everyone who has answered questions in other threads and thank you for looking. Hope this will be interesting for a few people in the future.