SO, I finally got those parts from Hondapartsdirect.com The invoice was printed on april 22 and they arrived at my door on june 1. I looked at the paking slip, and it looks like the box was packed in early may! it was kicking around their shipping department for almost a month, while I was calling once a week. Some service! Those guys are really nice, but I get the feeling that they have been very disorganized recently.
Anyway. I have tons of parts sitting on the table. I'll have to take a pic, I can't wait to start putting it all back together. But first I have some more work to do! the last few days I have accomplished the following:
- I finished the seat pan, it is ready for powder coating.
- I drilled the lighting mounts on the tail. ( tail light, rear signals, plate lights)
- I spent like 2 hours trying to get the valve head off of the cylinders, and the cylinders off of the crankcase.
- I realized exactly how much carbon builds up on valves and pistons over 30 years of running WAY too rich. (PO did some tuning, lets just say he got it wrong.... and left it there)
- 3 days of soaking valves and pistons in chemdip.
- Found out that you need 3 arms to remove valve springs in a drill press. (still looking for that retainer, last spotted at an altitude of 10 feet going southbound at 20 knots)
Everything is looking "ok." meaning that I haven't found anything that is a total show stopper. But some things are a little less than optimal inside the motor. since I don't have much experience with these motors I will need some advice on cam wear, rocker wear, and what the acceptable tolerances are. I have a manual, but it just says to measure the parts to acceptable tolerance. where do I find those numbers?
Do these look excessively worn to you:
sorry about the blurryness, I will try to get a better pic tonight.
other images from the last week:
not even kidding... all four pistons looked like this, or worse! noting a little chemdip can't solve though
This is for everyone that asks about how to get carbon off of pistons; chem-dip and a gloved finger!
all better!
Intake valves were awful!, I soaked them for 24 hours, spun them in the drillpress with a wire brush, coated them in lapping compound, ground them with the compound, wiped them off and.... now they are back in the chem-dip for another 24hours! they are way worse than I thought, but i'll get em clean.
valves out.
oh, shes dirty.
surprizingly the cylinders were not too worn, I am going to put off the overbore for a few years if i can... we'll see, maybe i will give in and bore it out.
covers are off, I am currently weighing my options. either:
1) polish the crap out of them myself, for free.
2) send them off to browns to be chromed out! for lots of dollars.
I am leaning toward polishing the covers myself. just because of the money it will take to get everything chromed. but chrome would look tight! we'll see.
Thats what the lights are going to look like. I got some LED turn signals, LED tail light, and led plate lights from custom dynamics. (by the way they are a great company to deal with!)
testing the lights in place. looks good to me!
ok, thats it for this update. I got in a ton of parts today, but I can't really touch them till I reassemble. all in due time. For now, it is more cleaning, polishing painting and replacing parts. getting ready to send stuff out for powder coating.
Here is a question for the few that read this post:
what are the pros and cons of Powder coating cylinders and crankcase?
I am going to split the cases anyway, because I have some inspection and seal replacement to do... so should I spent the few hundred it costs to powder coat these parts? or should I just roll with some duplicolor hitemp engine enamel? (I want the crankcase and cylinders black). It is a big difference in money, is it worth it?
later...
