Change of plans...

So, in the interest of getting myself on the road a little quicker, i decided to bite on a local listing for a motor!

It came from a 79 kz400 B2, turns over and has equal compression across both cylinders, though not the best compression... At any rate, I'm hoping it should get me by. If not... well, I guess I have plenty of parts for my other motor.

I will be cleaning this one up a little then throwing it into my frame for this years riding season. I will continue piecing together the other motor and will wait patiently for piston rings. Tonight i set the valve clearances and dumped some seafoam onto the pistons to sit overnight. This weekend past I also discovered that kerosene is a miracle cleaner. Amazing shit my friends, amazing shit. No scrubbing, no sanding, nothing... Just a couple of swipes and I get results like this:

Brilliant.

Doing time

Still unable to find NOS rings for my pistons, so not much news to report here. This weekend i cleaned up the crank case halves a little. I have discovered that kerosene is my friend. How I cleaned anything before discovering it, I dont know.

Another session or two of cleaning and I will likely seal up the case. Part of me thinks I should replace all of the bearings but im not sure if that is necessary... Part of me is getting tired of this whole song and dance but i'll stick with it, even if it means I dont get to ride this season :(

Seat Build - Part 2

So with a little more time on my hands, I drilled out some holes in the two metal pieces and riveted them together:

 

After that, I cut up seat cover and mocked things up. I think with some foam and contact cement I should have a half decent seat made up here.

Seat Build - Part 1

So, while my engine sits in pieces and I wait for the magical Piston Ring fairy to be done with her vacation, I decided to make an attempt at building a seat.

I bought 2 pieces of 16 gauge steel from Lowes and using a combination of Tin Snips and a Dremel, I was able to cut out the shapes I needed. I bent the metal to shape using a large metal hammer and some pieces of 2 x 4.

Not looking too pretty, but hopefully once I have the pieces sanded, painted, then riveted together, it will look a little better. Then I can get some foam glued on and finish it all up with some Vinyl. Stay tuned.

Quick Update

Just a quick update, its been a slow few days on the rebuild front. I was able to find a replacement cam chain guide which I have fitted. I have a chain also, though I have yet to compare the two to see if it is worth replacing.
Did a little cleaning on the lower crankcase half and am waiting to hear back from some manufacturers on the availability of custom made piston rings.

One thing I did start on was making up a custom seat pan. My existing one was full of rust and the seat foam about fell off. Stay tuned for some seat updates soon. I picked up some 16 gauge steel sheet to paly with...

Balancer and cam chain guide removed

So, after 8 more bolts that did not come off without some coaxing with the breaker bar, I was able to remove the balancer assembly:

This allowed me to finally gain access to that crappy tensioner guide that is falling to pieces. It was not as simple as I imagined it would be to remove, so I had to improvise a little bit. To remove the main horizontal pin that holds the guide in place, you have to first remove a little vertical pin.

 I took care of this with 2 pieces of coat hanger wire, which I used to kind of pinch and lift the pin, which I could then remove with pliars.

With the retaining pin out of the way, I tilted the remainder of the crankcase to help it slide out, then used that stupid telescopic magnet thing I bought at Autozone years ago because I thought it was cool.

Finally found a user for the thing other than trying to grab metal objects from across the room :D

So here it is, the nasty looking cam chain guide that caused me to split the case in the first place. Its replacement is ordered, so once I have cleaned things up I do not intend to replace anything else within the case.

Wishful thinking I'm sure ;)

Case Split!

Well after removing the final crankcase bolts, some light prying easily separated the halves. Next up will be the balancer mechanism, so that I can get to the crappy cam chain guide that started me down this messy path.

Stuck!

So I hit an unexpected snag that has occupied the last 3 days of my garage time. When removing the external shift mechanism (to allow me to proceed with splitting the case), i came across a screw that was stuck tight.

I attacked it with PB Blaster and the impact driver for 2 days with no movement and unfortunately, the head started to get mangled in this process.

I decided to go and buy a butane pencil torch before going any further and for about an entire day, I heated the screw for about 30 seconds, then let it cool, lubed up, let it sit, repeated.

Each time after heating, I would use vice grips to try and turn the screw with no results at all.

As I have discovered with this motor, persistance is the key. Repeated cycles of heating, lubing, hammering and gripping finally yielded a positive result. The screw started to move and I was finally able to unscrew it, a couple of milimeteres at a time. Not the most accesible place for the vice grips.

Funny how a single seized screw or bolt can put you several days behind. F U screw!