More updates! The end is in sight, but its hard to judge the distance when its the first you go down a trail. Turns out my route had some loops and I ended right where I started, or behind where I was before.
For those wondering about the hours in the next bit and the lack of photos: I was supposed to leave for Spain three days after we started rebuilding it, so we worked through the night and didn't take time to take many photos.
The engine had been opened up a lot it turned out...
First I closed the cases and found the owner had broken a threader in the top case at the front lip. He tried to get it out with a left handed threader, which broke on top of that. The rebuilders ended up taking 1,5 hours to drill it out, oversized..., and put a big plug in. Lost a few days there. Don't have a picture, but it was pretty gruesome...
I did buy some amazing liquid gasket off them: it's stuff used by VW in the factories to seal their engines and it even replaces normal gaskets all around. Its anaerobic, which means it won't set until all the air is removed (torqued down) making this very easy to work with. Its fluo green, which is a bit of a pain when it squeezes round, but thats just some elbow grease to fix that.
After closing the cases and torquing the whole thing down, I struggled for an hour with the alternator cover....it just wouldn't sit right. I mixed up all my bolts when I had to move the opened engine twice and had to sort through them to get the right ones. Absolute pain!
Put the electronic ignition in (Accent EZcoils) and test fitted the clutch basket and new plates.
This is where things went very, very downhill.....
First I had to install the APE studs, but as the shop I was in was moving house, the compressor had gone. No air or anything to clean all the holes, so improvised. To make matters worse, I dropped my M8 threader into the cases.....felt like crying! It was around 3 in the morning...
Had no oil in it yet, so tipped and wiggled and got it out thank god! Got all the studs in, put the pistons on, all the new rings and dropped the cylinders on there. Empty shop means no ring clamp and my hose clamps just wouldn't do the trick. So we sacrileged our way through it by squeezing each ring in, one by one. Happy days as my Irish friend would say!
As they slid in, something was up and sleep deprivation crept up on us, by virtue of not having the cam chain roller up.
Had to pull the cylinders off and do it all again.
Finally got that all sorted, put the head on and started torquing down the bolts. A Honda specialist over here recommended copper washers, so we put those on but it looked weird. Not wanting to back again, we left them for now.
Started putting the cam on and torquing down the cam towers. I immediately pulled a thread on the side. The sun was coming up and we called it a day at 5:30 in the morning.
Went to the rebuilders a few hours later, sort of slept, and he was as gutted as I was. He fixed it quick and we got back into it, only to pull another thread straight away. I was using a small wrench and hardly used any pressure, was set at 0,75 kg. As a test I did a few more bolts and pulled yet another one.
Calling it a day, I lugged in my car and brought it home. After another inspection all the threads seemed in poor condition, one was already coiled. Got a helicoil set and drilled all M6 holes that hold the cam towers. Set about finishing the job and finally got the cam on right!
Put the covers on and almost done with the engine! Need to finish up the clutch, but I don't have the tool for the nut that holds the basket in place.
Before all this, I've been doing some painting:
Frame in flatt black. Paint is Hardhat by Rustoleum.
Bolt porcupine! Had all colours bolts from old and new ones, so painted all of them on a piece of styro.
Covers, kickstarter, brake and shifter pedal, air box
Shock housing. Needs more blasting, as the paint won't stick too well. Were chromed and blasted, but still won't stick too well.
Frame, swingarm and triple
Picked up a big Supertrapp exhaust that was pretty ugly. Painted it black and white.
More bits and pieces
Now for the piece de la resistance! After the painter did a crazy job, my friend put the cherry on top by drawing a sick graphic on the tank and oil tank.
She finally got her name. La Heroìna. Meaning both the drug and the female hero as she is both to me. The build has been addictive, cost me all my money, put relationships on the brink of collapse and in the end it kind of lost the fun because of all the #$%* that is coming out of this build. Female hero as she pulled me through a really bad time in my life and gave me something to look forward to!
Here is 80% complete shot (exc engine):
A fabricator is doing the last things now, like alignment on the wheels, sprockets, etc. Picking it up on monday/tuesday and will be building it up from there on out. I seems like I went through the last valley and cresting the final hill now with a view of the end of this trip.
