Topic: 466 project turned in to a 3+ year gig. now redoing the transmission.

[Jore]

I finally took the head off today. It fairly easy to do, I just had some trouble removing the cam shaft, but that one came out easily after removing the tensioner blades, to remove those I just pushed them down and gave them a 1/4 of a turn and the were free.

The main reason I took the head off was because the bike had an oil leak right in the middle of the cylinders but more towards the alternator side, so since buying it I was determined to change any gasket that could cause a leak. Everything went well while removing the head except I think the PO might have also done something to it since the nut where extremely tight, they felt way tighter than the 14 ft/lbs the manual says they should be at, and also 2 nuts had either striped threads or had helicoils on them, I'm leaning more towards helicoils since the nuts are smooth on the inside and I had to unscrew the coils out from the studs, and also the 2 stripped nuts where in the area that had the oil leak. The old head gasket lifts off without sticking to the block or breaking, and the piston bores all seem smooth to touch and you can even see some cross hatching on them, no ridges or nicks on them.

Here's a picture of the block without the head.


The cylinders are filled with grease because I used a grease gun to move the pistons before I found out it was the clutch that froze and not the pistons.

This is what the inside looks like:


As for the head I'm thinking of having it hot tanked or something like that to get it cleaned, probably lap the valves and install new seals, if a slight resurfacing is needed then i'll also do it.

This is what it looks like:




I wan't to take out the cylinders also to get those cleaned as well as the whole engine, I'm thinking on going with black, but first I have to get everything sorted out and clean before painting, I'll change the o-rings on the oil pump and give it a good cleaning. What else should I do at this stage?

[Jore]

Also the clutch plates came in from Japan a few days ago, but I'm waiting to put that one in when the motor is almost running. And if the need to get overbore piston rings arises or if one of the cylinders is bad I've been pondering on getting a 466cc kit from ebay.

[Jore]

Can anyone give me some tips regarding a top end rebuild? i'm still pondering a bunch of things on what to do. I'm planning on taking my time on this thing.

[Jore]

Thanks I'll have a machine shop check everything and then I'll sort out the details, are the specs found in the manual or do I have to look for something else?

[Jore]

Thanks again Calj, I get to that.

[Jore]

I've been pondering the idea of splitting the cases, first to fix that ugly gash on the tensioner bolt, and also to get them nice and clean for paint.

In what sort of predicament would I get myself into doing that?

Since starting the project I've been getting more comfortable working with the bike and also i've been pacing myself a lot, I'm not in a hurry to get to a deadline, I just want my bike to look good and be reliable.

[Jore]

I already have a full gasket kit, it's just a matter of getting the seals then. I'll ponder with the idea a few days, but if I'm doing a full resto with some mods might as well do it right.

[Jore]

Yesterday i took the head to a machine shop that was recommended to me by a bunch of mechanics, it seems to be turning out great, I called today to see in what state the is, they told me to call again tomorrow since they still had some work to do before checking my head, but the guy told me not to worry about if something was out of spec the could fix it, they even told me that the have the necessary stock and expertise to make valves and valve guides if it needs to be. I'm really hoping they are not needed, but still it's good to know I can get them sourced locally.

BTW the guy that runs the place has a thing for modifying aircooled VW's so he was happy to see another aircooled motor part around.

[Redline it]

good to hear!! I gotta re read through this. Hey that nice running motor I had sitting for a few years that I dropped and bent a exhaust stud...I thought I'd take the head off and try to fix the gaping hole I had created by the hand drilled stud removal.lol! I was going to just get some experience in a head gasket change. Now I'm lookin at bore, new pistions rings, cam, chain, head etc. I now know I have to do it blindfolded, or I'm gonna find more trouble!! That motor ran bad ass, high performance,  Stock for 32,000 miles and started a single "miss," I nursed it home for 10 to 15 miles, to find out some years later (now,)  it ran perfectly and gave up when it was uniformly worn out basically everywhere, bores are polished shiny (not the best thing to see,) as a compression ring couldn't handle all the gas causing carbon under it, so it broke into 3 thin pieces, and that didn't help the 15 mile ride home.  Honda designed it very well.

[Jore]

On monday I'll take the cylinders also with the machinist to make sure they're still good, today I tried for about 3 hours to take them off with no luck, the 2 outers came out in mere minutes, but the inner's where a pain, I managed to free on but the other one is still stuck, from the free one I can see the second top ring, from the other one only one of the lower rings.

I used wooden wedges to lift the cylinders, but in the end I have so many wedges in there that It was crazy, so I called it a day and sprayed liquid wrench on the pistons from top and bottom, tomorrow I might try the trick where you fill the cylinder with atf/acetone and light it on fire.

3 out of 4 pistons looked silver and kinda shiny, but the stuck one looks browned.

I missed taking a pic of the center ones, but this is how most of it looks:









In this one you can see one of the freed center ones, but I forgot to do a closeup

[Jore]

It's free!!!! But not without setbacks.

It's a long holiday here in Mexico, so I couldn't get a hold on someone else to help me, I ended up using atf, acetone and fire to free the piston, it worked, but one piston got mangled in the process and I broke the piston skirt (ouch), so I'll have to get new pistons either way, be it original sized or over sized.

If you run a finger around the top of the bores you can feel a tiny ridge on all of them, anyway here are the pics of it:

[Jore]

I have a new spare room in my house, so now the frame will go there, I'll start setting up the parts that I already have done, in the mean time here's the frame with the side covers on

[Jore]

I've just come back from the machinist, I have good news and bad news, although I think it can go either way:

1. The head is in top shape, everything in spec, only the valves need to be lapped.
2. The cylinder walls don't look so good, especially the one that got stuck.
3. I'll need to overbore the cylinders.

So those are the main points, and being that the only piston kit I've found within reasonable price are the the ones from the 466 kit, that's the route I'm going, I talked to the machinist and he told me it can be done.

Since moving the frame inside I think I'll start doing a mock-up of the other parts and might do an electronics pan to get the new wiring done. Here's how it looks btw.

[Bigsam302]

I think that it is going to be a gorgeous bike.  Keep up the good work!

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

I think you'll like the extra power from the 466.  At least the valves are in decent shape (only lapping required).

[Jore]

I've just bought the 466 kit from cruizinimage off of ebay, last time I ordered my new clutch from the seller it arrived to my home in about 10 days, about a week earlier from estimated, this time the arrival should be between sep 30th and oct 14, lets hope it gets here earlier.

In the mean time I think I should get to splitting my cases, what tips do you have for that? Should I remove the clutch and oil pump first while it's still on the stand or can I get to those once I have everything on the workbench?

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Each time I've purchased from this seller, I receive the kit ahead of schedule.

[Jore]

According to ebay, it'sbeen already shipped! Take that for efficiency, lees than an hour between buying and shipping.

[Jore]

Being that we have a holiday here in Mexico, I last night pulled an all nighter doing my homework going through the 466 posts. I feel confident that with a lot of care and effort I can tackle this project.

In the mean time, I started an inventory on what I have and where it is and I'll be adding parts to the frame as a mock-up. This forum is an amazing source of knowledge.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

If you get in over your head, and you are in the DF, call Rodrigo Tuero or Luis Mercado Rojo at Soul Motor Co.

[Jore]

Thanks! DF is about 8 hours away from me, but still it's good to know that there are more people that can help out.

[Jore]

They're here!!!!



They feel so tony and light, kinda like toys! Just one question though, how big should the difference between the headgasket's opening and the pistons be? I compared the two and there's a few mm gap between them.

The head was supposed to be done today but I couldn't make it in time to the shop after work, so I'll go tomorrow and take the 466 kit along and what else will be needed. I'm stocked this thing is getting some steam!

[Jore]

I might be a parallax error since I just compared them through the packing bags. I took the kit to the machinist this morning and while there I took a look at the head, it's almost done they only need to do a cleaning on it, I'll pick it up this afternoon most probably, also I took a stroll through my local autozone and found that now they stock ZDDP additive! So I got a bottle for when it's needed, being that the guys at AZ didn't know if they would have it in stock again.

One more question, I only saw white lithium grease, but didn't see any assembly lube, can that be used or should I look someplace else?

[Don R]

Lucas has some good assembly lube on their display rack. They seem to make a few products that aren't snake oil either.

[Jore]

Well I picked up the head, the shop did a slight milling to it, they took about 3 thousands of an inch from it. I arrived on time to watch them do it an during the first pass you could see the high and low spots it had, coincidentally the low spots where from the same area oil wept. After being milled it looked all nice and shiny.

Here's one area of the shop, on this side they do mostly diesel and heavy machinery, they had a crankshaft laying around that was almost as tall as me.



This one's the head being milled



And here it is, sorry for the bad lighting:



I also found some proper assembly lube