PART 2STRANGE ENCOUNTERSo the disassembly went rather smoothly other than the two nuts that fasten to the studs which sit under the intake and exhaust ports. These were so seized that I had to split them to remove them. Obviously I had to get new studs for reassembly.
After I removed the head, the gasket looked fine (bought all new gaskets anyway). The head itself (combustion chamber) had quite a bit of carbon buildup, but I was able to clean off the majority of the buildup pretty easily with some carb cleaner and a soft bristle brush.
DIVINE PROVIDENCE???I was sure that there was going to be carnage in the cylinder from the mesh wedged against one of my valves. BUT, believe it or not, there was nothing out of the ordinary inside the cylinder, or on the piston itself. The only reason I can explain this is because the mesh wedged at the top of the valve instead of the bottom, which was keeping the piston from making physical contact with the mesh. When I removed the head, the mesh was pushed up against the curve of the dome of the combustion chamber where the piston wouldn't have hit it. Luckily enough, the piston, cylinder, and head were all in really good condition, and looked brand new after cleaning them with some gumout spray carb cleaner and a nice soft bristle brush.
Valve Grinding, Honing, and Ring Seating, Oh My!After I removed the valve springs and cleaned the combustion chamber, I used valve grinding compound (the Permatex stuff you can get at any major auto parts store) and lapped them. I was surprised the intake valve that had the mesh stuck in it was not dented or hurt. They cleaned up well.
I bought a good ball flex hone (240 grit I believe) and honed the cylinder to prepare it for new rings (45 degree crosshatch).
After I did this, I gave the head, cylinder, and valves a nice bath in warm water made soapy with dawn. I cleaned all of these parts twice (just out of paranoia lol
)
The ring installs on the piston is relatively easy. Just use the Clymer manual for your ring orientation (important for compression/lubrication) and make sure that your ring gap is ok. The gap service limit for the 1st and second rings are 1.00 mm (0.039 in). Feeler gauges are cheap and you have no reason to not have any. Go and buy some. Main thing is double-check your work and take your time
.
CleaningAside from the major stuff, I took the time to clean all the various nuts and such I was re-using. The previous owner had this bike sitting outside so some of the nuts and bolts had some pretty gnarly surface rust. This is easy peasy. I actually had an almost-full tube of red Wenol that I used on the shiny chrome bits. This made many of the parts look almost new (including the rest of the chrome/shiny bits on the rest of the bike).
Cam Chain TensionerNot much to say here. I have a friend who is a welding instructor at my local Tennessee College for Applied Technology (trade school). I had him weld me an extension to the stock tensioner.
Re-assemblyOnce I was satisfied that I replaced everything I needed to, I re-assembled everything back opposite the way it came apart (duh lol). Make sure you have a torque wrench, you're gonna need it I promise.
Honestly, getting the camshaft lined up with the sprocket and the piston at TDC was the hardest part for me. The cam has two lines at the end of the shaft that attaches to the upper sprocket that have to be parallel with the journal edges. This is the easy part. The hard part is keeping the cam and the piston lined up while putting the sprocket back. This just takes trial and error (and a few choice words each time you have to re-do it
).
Make sure you give the valve landings, cam lobes, and rocker pads a healthy dose of assembly lube to avoid unnecessary wear the first time you crank it. Also, I chucked that little wire mesh thingy in the trash and installed a standalone spectre crankcase breather filter from auto zone at the end of the hose (no more mesh breaking off
). I got a little vacuum port cap and put it over the airbox port that the breather usually connects to as well.
I finished the assembly with a fresh valve adjustment and a few new head cover bolts.
Be careful with old head cover bolts. I had a few that wanted to stretch, so I had to replace those.
I also used some extra RTV gasket for the head plug leak fix (just as a precaution, I wasn't having this issue).
I also bought a 16" slash cut Delkovic muffler to cap things off. After putting everything back together, I am happy to say the bike runs like a top, sounds amazing, and should be as reliable as it could possibly be. I did a bunch of extra cosmetic work too, and it honestly looks
almost brand new.
I hope this helps someone down the road at some point. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I will try my best to answer!
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