Well, since I'd got my head down during the week, I figured I was owed an afternoon in the shed....
I've always liked the "exploded diagram" photos you see in some of the magazines... so I had a go myself.
Unfortunately I kinda ran out of room on the bench.... so there's a few items not shown. :roll:
After I tidied everything back up again, I got on with the things I had planned:
First wash the grease off the main crank bearings:
one bowl of petrol :
Aaaand about ten minutes later...
One bowl of R30 with all the pins in.
I figure they'll be safe in there until final assembly.
I also remembered that I wanted to check the valves properly, as discussed a lot further up the thread....
First I did a bit of cleaning up on the inlet manifold while I was there :
Much better.
Collected up all the valve bits.
Inlet valve went in first
Couple of Mica washers to slow down the heat transfer to the springs. I've already done all the work checking the spring-weights
The base cup and washer... and it's time to dig out the spring clamp!
This part always terrifies me..... it's like having a loaded gun with a hair trigger sitting on a jack in the box...
Especially when you realise you forgot to put the circlip on the stem. FFS.
Anyway - managed to fineagle it on without firing the springs into my face..
I actually did have to loosen it off because the springs were all leaning one way and I had to re-center the jaw of the clamp so I could get the collets on.
Note to self... put the circlip on FIRST.
(Well - after the valve goes in the guide... natch....)
Cocked and loaded.
Had to dig around for a plug, but found one.
NOT for drinking! (well - a last resort...)
Believe it or not... that's full.
Definitely full!
And NO DRIPS!!
I am SOOO $%^&&ing pleased with myself! I even did a little dance!
Waste not want not...
So - that's the head sorted!
Like I say - I am really happy that the valve seal, I spent a lot of time doing that and it's very very satisfying to see that it appears to have all gone right.
I put the head away but kept the Meths out...
The next job was cleaning up the cases.
I mainly wanted to get all the grease off the main bearing liners.
There's a feed oil that gravity feeds oil from the underside of the barrel, down to the liner...
Obviously there was grease in the feed hole.
Yeah - that got messy.... I pulled some meths into the syringe and blasted it into the top of the feed hole!
I blew air through the hole quite a few times, pretty sure it's 99% grease free now - anything left will just join the general gunkiness that is the end result of CastrolR getting hot.
I used the meths to clean both cases up as best I could, including the main joining faces.
Then I started to look more closely at some of the peripheral bits of the cases.
This is the "sludge trap" which slows down the feed of oil out to atmosphere (these engines are designed to be total loss, and piss oil out onto the track - it's a speedway engien remenber!)
As in that photo, I have spare parts to replace those in the cases - but I'm not sure how to get them out, you can't really get a hammer inside the cases to knock them out from the inside, and I didn't want to get all Conan with a screwdriver....
So, while I pondered that... I spent an hour or so checking all the screws and threads for the peripherals.
These feckers are M5.
The dreaded silicon sealant....
If you look closely.... you may notice that yes, indeed, the black set-screws (for the sludge trap catchbox) are VERY closely aligned with the oval-headed screws for the oil-trap cover...
They actually interfere with each other!! But it's actually not a problem because the black set-screws are the right length for the catchbox. But it gave me pause for thought as I was cleaning everything out!
I cleaned up all the threads for the oil-trap cover as well - now there's plenty of thread to ensure the cover is held down tight.
And I found a nozzle in with one of the tubes of Blue Hylomar! that'll make life easier!
So - all the threads are clean, I've got the Hylomar all ready, the bearings are clean and soaking in oil (mainly so there's "something" to just about keep them in the cages when I assemble the cases), I've got the gaskets I need (I tried to make up some carboard templates last week, but had limited success).
I just want to get that sludge trap sorted out before I really get going on the full assembly. I've asked a question on a popular group on FB, so hopefully I'll get a response soon!
Oh - I also found that all the little parts that hold the rockers in place in their box - the washers and bearing liners had gone fecking rusty! I think my mistake was storing them all in sealed plastic boxes after I'd been fiddling with them repeatedly last year - a mix of trapped humid air and acidic finger grease.
So I gave them all a good brass-brushing and we'll see how they fare. The actual bearing surfaces seem to be fine - it's the rest (eg the outer surfaces of the liners) that had surface rust on them. my dumb mistake, but I doubt they'll be problematic.
So - progress and some mistakes, but, mostly progress!
