Seeing as I couldn't make the bike show this time, I decided I'd head out to the garage for a little tinker with the bike. My mate Craig came down to give me a hand and some company, while we attempted to check the valve clearances and remove the heads to check the valve's and seats, and remove the valve stem oil seals as the bike was putting out a little puff of blue smoke when revved at a standstill. First thing to do was to remove the tops of the heads to let us in to check the valve clearances. We checked the clearances and all were within 0.001" of each other and within the 0.001" band from the recommendations. Looks like they have been done recently, and I could tell someone had been in already as the surfaces of the casings had been cleaned down to seal it back up. 1 less job to do then From there we took of the heads and removed the valves to check for wear or any other damage. Again nothing out of the ordinary, with only the exhaust valves showing some carbon build up on them. Which takes us onto the next pic of the top of the piston. Which you can see is a bit wet from oil. Again pointing to the valve stem oil seals. We also checked the bores just in case it was the rings, but these were like new and you can still see the swirls in the barrels from honing. So it was out with the oil seals in prep of placing an order from Honda for a new set all round, and new cylinder head gaskets. Valve stem oil seals While we covered the engine with blue roll I noticed some engraving on the casings, which I read were from when each bike was built at the HRC factory the builder would initial it and add the bike number too. Looks like mine is number 545 from the factory. Next stage will be to take the valves into my work and clean them up, and then use marking blue to check how they are seating in the head, and replace the oil seals. Then put the engine back together to get it stripped of all the gunk, cleaned up and then re-lacquered with VHT lacquer.
To complex for me to understand but for you colin it must be a nice project ,It looks like a big heavy engine once out on the bench! Is the new Blade engine quite small side by side?
It's not that heavy to be honest Giv. I could lift it by my self without too much hassle. Side by side with the blade it's pretty much as you would think. With the blade engine being wider but more compact, and the SP engine being narrow and more spread out front to back. I suspect the blade engine would be lighter though.
There is the wisdom of the single man. Colin, if this thread is going on for much longer I'm going to get RSI in my left wrist.
You might want to get some physio/therapy then Ken. I don't plan on rushing to get this back together. I have all winter to get this bike back to the way it should be. It'll be a proud moment when I wheel it out for it's first run.
Its looking ok mate, nothing you have looks out of place and you've got it all under control... nice going! And yeah Ken go easy on the old fella mate, too much and it could fall off! that or use the other arm for a day or two...!
Thanks Arthur. I was a little taken aback when I first seen the top of the piston, but it'll clean up good enough. I'm going to take the valves into work and check them for any bending, and to give them a gentle clean up. Then I'll see how they seat using marking blue. All in all it's been a good learning curve.
Looks normal tbh mate, most superbikes oil the crown like that when used on the road I think we all like to try and ride like McPint but it just dont happen maybe if he had it for a lap of the TT that crown would look a little different.. As you say the seals are the problem they dry up and go hard over time so need doing, she'll be good to go after that!
Got 1 of those with the bike when I bought it. I use either that or the PDF type service manuals. Nothing beats experience though.
Haha, no mate I dont own a single one, genuine service data only for me mate Im taking the piff.. not that they are bad that is....*trying not to dig myself into a hole....lol I quote "red dwarf and hollys the encyclopedia of space"
Lol I love how in the Haynes they say remove, this and remove that. Very good you say, how the fook do you do that then. Gggrrrrrrr
Quick update on the project guys. My new engine parts have arrived, from a very helpful MrB. Thanks mate. So it looks like I will have a very merry Christmas with plenty of time being spent out in the mancave during the hols. I'll post up more pics as always and keep you all up to date.
I enjoy trying to decipher the pictures and trying to rotate to the correct angle to make them match. The phots must have one of those rigs Tom Cruise used in Mission Impossible.
Ok guys, I managed a few hours out in the man cave today to get things started on getting this bike back together again. First up the valves were in need of a clean up to get rid of the carbon deposits. Luckily my dad keeps a small milling machine in the garage as this came in handy. I then cleaned up the heads and gasket area's in prep for building it all back up. Next on the list was to fit the new valve stem oil seals, which were the main reason for me stripping the engine down (well mostly just because I'm keen to see inside an engine) New stem seals And fitted I then went ahead and refitted the valves to the head. Took my time doing this as I didn't want to mess up anything. Valves back in From there it was then time to put the heads back on with new gaskets. Old head gasket New head gasket Head now back on It was then a case of getting the other head back on with its new stem seals in prep for fitting the cams back on, and getting the timing sorted for both sides. Cams getting fitted Refit the covers and that was me for a days work Hopefully tomorrow I can start stripping all the gunk off from the outer casings with alloy cleaner and then polish it up a little to get it back to its best prior to giving it a coat of VHT lacquer. I'll also strip off all the PAIR system gubbings and measure up some blanking plates to make at work. Any bolts that are looking past there best will be replaced/cleaned up and all going well I'll have the engine back in the bike before the new year.
Well today was all clean, clean, and more clean on the engine. This was actually a lot harder than we first thought with a lot of the dirt really baked in to the paint of the engine. We started off with some alloy cleaner and scrubbing brushes/toothbrushes to get rid of the majority of the loose muck and grime, and then we had to resort to some heavier scotchbrite and elbow greese to get down to the harder baked on grime. Here's a few pics to show how it was before hand. And some pics after we had rubbed off the fingerprints on our hands and our arms were dead. We didn't manage to get the really embedded in marks off of the worst parts of the casing, though we would probably have to remove the paint from the casings to do so, and that I think would be a step too far as we wouldn't be able to see these areas anyway with the frame being in the way. Overall though I'm pretty happy with the way that it came out. We are going to polish the 2 outer casings up using autosol and then its just a matter of cleaning the frame and re-fitting the engine.
