Topic: Terry Bob's redneck F-ing K2 bitsa project!

[Tintop]

I'm wondering if those Honda pistons are from a 500 single.  They made an engine with 2 intakes & a single exhaust in the 80's (?).

[PeWe]

The bottle on the bench could have a different label.
Ginger Terry, Terry Lube or Terry activator...

[RAFster122s]

Terry you still brewing you Ginger Slut or whatever name you have come up with for a recent batch name or is that a new bottle of Ginger Joes on the workbench?
Sorry to hear of the PO's crap causing you to lose another motor...
Yes, I have had some choice words/thoughts for some idiots that preceded me over the years.

California had a huge exodus over past year plus now and #2 exodus location for them to land...yes AZ. Can they realize the hell they created with their politics and rules be checked at the border or can we just ship all the morons back? They drive atrociously changing into your lane at a light mid turn when your fender is even with their door and do not return to their lane when you lay on the horn. Good thing we in AZ don't do the stupidity of a few decades ago when the Californians were pulling guns and shooting at each other on the freeways. Remember that?
They have all been disarmed as CA only the criminals have handguns  and select few have legal handguns. They forget AZ has very nice Second Amendment rights here and many of us carry concealed legally and legally you don't require a concealed permit here to carry concealed. Open carry is legal unless it is on the forbidden list but it makes people nervous in the city. Having carried openly with a 357 I once had a guy I was having lunch with and meeting a group of his friends make a comment about my open carry with a comment about Dirty Harry... I told him no, it wasn't a S&W but a nicer Colt and it was a 357; not the 44 mag
I am not stupid enough to brandish or pull a weapon unless there is life threatening cause to do so for someone else or myself.

Going to be 86 today and 91 tomorrow, may ride to church tomorrow...
Summer temps sre around the corner... 25-30 mph winds last night and today... Going to calm down to about 14 later this afternoon.
May need to take a ride and enjoy the warmth after I fix a car maintenance task and wash the dust and dirt under the hood, very dusty environment I live in out in the desert NW of Tucson. Bike will get a bath too... Gotta pull the med kit out of the saddlebags as it is getting too warm to stay in the bike outside again now Spring is here in the desert SW.
Gotta go through the trauma kit and molle strap a pair of Israeli 6" compression bandages to the outside of the small med kit. Gotta buy some more QuikClot or Celox granules as I don't think the 10g  currently in the kit is enough. I am on blood thinners and not everywhere I ride will have big city response times in case of an accident. Gear protects you only so much and if you happen upon an accident you never know when you may need to save someone else's life.
I think trauma med kits should be required on every motorcyclist's bike. It could make a difference for some whose injuries are not lethal from head trauma or spinal injuries. Tucson city is a dangerous place to ride a motorcycle. I am extremely cautious when in the city. Motorcycle accidents are weekly in the city and deaths are common. Lots of stupid riders with no helmets and lots of sport bike riders. Very few riders even come close to agatt.  I like my skin and it is good for my mental health to ride.

[grcamna2]

Good thing you're cleaning-out the rest of that 'goop' from inside the cases Terry.

[scunny]

Terry, I think those 64mm pistons are off a CB900F. google the part # 13101-438-000

[Terry in Australia]

Terry, I think those 64mm pistons are off a CB900F. google the part # 13101-438-000

Could be Scunny, but the 900F had a 64.5mm bore, and these are 64.18? The CB750F (DOHC) had a 62mm bore, so maybe they're oversize? If they are, it looks like a lot of material has been ground/sanded/filed of the domes, I should measure the thickness and see how much meat is left? I'm also wondering if that tapping/knocking noise wasn't the pistons kissing the valves, but rather, the domes hitting the combustion chambers? It was certainly a problem with my Arias 1428cc Kawasaki Z1 pistons when I turned it over by hand, which was why I had to machine 5mm off each dome to make them fit in the GPZ1100's much smaller combustion chambers.

1428 piston machining 21 Aug 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

1428 piston machining 21 Aug 2020  2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[PeWe]

Those pistons are really made for drag racing!
Gas ported pistons have entered my radar the last days
https://www.jepistons.com/blog/vertical-and-horizontal-gas-porting

[grcamna2]

The bottle on the bench could have a different label.
Ginger Terry, Terry Lube or Terry activator...

Lol 

[Terry in Australia]

OK, so I was hoping to have it all back together yesterday, and once upon a time, when I was fitter and stronger, and more prone to cutting corners that might have happened, but instead, I spent most of yesterday stripping everything out of the cases, and with my new super-expensive Simple Green Extreme Aircraft degreaser and 20 litres of de-mineralised water, I made a wash tub from one of the storage tubs I bought to keep my parts in, and gave the cases, head and cylinder block the clean of their lives.

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I hosed all of the degreaser off them, and laid them on my hot concrete driveway to dry.

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 7 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I put the cylinder block with it's 64mm bores, and Spotty's cylinder block with it's 65mm bores into my industrial oven and heated them to 220 deg C, and waited to hear the "Bang" as the expanding aluminium cylinder block fell away from the cast iron sleeves. Easy peasy, no whacking the sleeves out with a mallet, just let them fall out of their own accord.

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 99f by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I pulled them both out, dropped all the sleeves out, and took the opportunity to scrape the thick splooge of Threebond off both mating surfaces of my cylinder block, then wire wheeled all the threebond from the tops of Spotty's cylinder block (which must have been assembled by the same person, why oh why is it necessary to coat your head gasket if a thick layer of that sh1t?) Spotty's was so bad that even though I'd unbolted everything I couldn't separate the head from the cylinder block until I squeezed a paint scraper between the two, and worked my way all around the mating surfaces. Anyway, I put the sleeves in the beer fridge for awhile to cool down, and had a cold liquid snack while I was there.

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 9e by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I then reheated the block, and when it was nice and hot, I dropped the 65mm sleeves in place, and it was all good. I wore my nice thick welding gloves and was happy that I didn't burn myself or drop anything, that's always a bonus.

And that was about it for the day, and as it was threatening rain, I put away all my 1969 Yamaha YDS6 parts that were delivered in the morning. It was great to see that the engine was in such good condition, and (most) of the parts were there. I also loved that it's sill wearing it's original paint, and as faded as it might be, it'll do me, I'll just fix whatever the gearbox issue was and stick the engine back in the bike, for the first time in over 30 years. Even the tyres held air!

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 9c by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 9f by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 9b by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Sunday 7 Mar 2021 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[Terry in Australia]

Today was pretty tedious. I was going to ride over to my mate Fred's place to do some parts swapping with him, but as I was so far behind with the engine build, we agreed that we'd do it next weekend. My first job, which took several hours, was to clean every skerrick of sealant off not just every mating surface, but in every bolt hole, threaded hole, you name it, I scraped it. What I found worked best was a little wire "Tooth brush", it really got rid of that silver sh1t. Once all mating surfaces (top, bottom, sides, oil pan, etc) were clean I filed down a couple of burrs caused by some numpty using a screwdriver to separate the cases to make sure they were gonna sit flush. I then installed the new main bearings:

K2 Bitsa rebuild 7 Mar 2021 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I bought this tub of Redline assembly lube when I bought the first of the two big bore kits I bought for my Harley Sportster in 2016 and 2018. I still haven't installed either, but I've used about half the jar of lube, it's great stuff.

K2 Bitsa rebuild 7 Mar 2021 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I lubed the bearings, then dabbed a smear of blue RTV all round the top case mating surface. The blue really contrasts the red, don't you think?

K2 Bitsa rebuild 7 Mar 2021 7 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I let that cure while I filled the gearbox up. I'd cleaned everything with my air hose, so it was just a case off dropping everything in place. The primary chains and tensioner in spotty's spare engine have been replaced recently, as has the big end bearings in the crank according to the punch marks, and the crank was a huge improvement over the worn out crank I pulled out.

K2 Bitsa rebuild 7 Mar 2021 9b by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Once I'd made sure everything was assembled correctly, I carefully lowered the top case onto the bottom case, closed it up, then torqued the crank bearings, followed by the plethora of 6mm bolts top and bottom, and the three bolts at the rear of the crankcase. I was happy that the crank spun freely, but there was no play in it. Sweet. I then re-assembled the gear shifter assembly, and replaced the alternator and gear shifter covers, after installing the starter motor.

K2 Bitsa rebuild 7 Mar 2021 9c by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

And by this time I was feeling like I'd had enough for the day. If all goes well I'll get the pistons and cylinders on tomorrow, and maybe the head as well. As long as it's ready to go back into the bike by the weekend, I'll be happy. More soon.

[grcamna2]

Terry,your K2 'Bitsa' engine is looking properly restored after you gave it a complete tear-down:that was good of Spotty to volunteer his engine.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Bill, Spotty would give you the shirt off his back for sure, but I refer to it as Spotty’s engine even though I’ve owned it for a couple of years, after I traded my Kawasaki ZZR1100 for his K7 and spare engine.

[RAFster122s]

Terry, what diameter are your Ginger Joe bottles and other bottles you use? OD and height of the main cylinder? Curious if the bottles are sized the same as here in the US. I would hope bottles do not vary greatly. Are the beer bottles a 500ml or other size typically?
Here in the US, and I would imagine elsewhere there is a shortage of aluminum cans during the pandemic so lots of places having issues obtaining empty containers for selling product. Oddly enough this has affected soda beverage distribution to more rural areas. Here in Tucson you can find things like Diet Pepsi on the shelves in cans but not in great qualities. You cannot find it 90 miles SE in Sierra Vista.

[grcamna2]

Terry,your Yamaha YDS6 project coming-up?

[Terry in Australia]

Terry, what diameter are your Ginger Joe bottles and other bottles you use? OD and height of the main cylinder? Curious if the bottles are sized the same as here in the US. I would hope bottles do not vary greatly. Are the beer bottles a 500ml or other size typically?
Here in the US, and I would imagine elsewhere there is a shortage of aluminum cans during the pandemic so lots of places having issues obtaining empty containers for selling product. Oddly enough this has affected soda beverage distribution to more rural areas. Here in Tucson you can find things like Diet Pepsi on the shelves in cans but not in great qualities. You cannot find it 90 miles SE in Sierra Vista.

Ha ha, I'll have to measure a Ginger Joe bottle and let you know David but the ones I drink (they come in smaller cans too, but I "recycle" the bottles when I make my own) are 500 ML, which I think is a US pint, but smaller than an Imperial pint. The alcohol content is 8%, so it's important not to drive or operate machinery after you've had a couple.

We've been very lucky with Covid here, no vaccines being distributed as yet as there's a world shortage due to the huge infection numbers in the US and Europe, the UK etc, but that's OK, I think we have 5 cases here in my state and probably less than 20 Australia wide, all of who are in isolation, so we're pretty much Covid-free at the moment.

Folks here have been pretty good about wearing masks and social distancing in general, but of course there are the fools who think their rights are being impinged in some way, but the main thing I've taken from people's attitudes to Covid-19 is that it's Darwin's theory of natural selection in practise. Dumb arses who think that they don't need to wear masks because it won't happen to them will (hopefully) be removed from the gene pool, and the offspring of the survivors will be more intelligent and able to cope better with the next pandemic, and the one after that. It's just a shame that so many innocent nursing home residents and first responders, doctors and nurses etc have died along the way. 

We did have a 5 day lockdown that only ended a couple of weeks ago, and I had to laugh that the first thing people rush their supermarkets for is toilet paper, if it was me it's be booze, cheese, salami and crackers in that order, I've got plenty of things I can wipe my arse with if I need to.    

[Terry in Australia]

Terry,your Yamaha YDS6 project coming-up?

Ha ha, yes Bill, but all I'm gonna do is bolt it back together once I've had a look at the gearbox issue, it's pissing me off that the carbs, gauges, coils and exhaust pipes are missing, but I've asked the seller to look for them, as it'd be a b1tch if I had to buy things I shouldn't need to as the seller said it was "complete".

The foam has collapsed in the OEM seat, so I'm gonna carefully remove the cover, buy a chunk of foam and carve it with my foam knife and fix a little tear in the cover from inside, and refit the cover. The pipes a US seller sold me on Ebay as being Suzuki "T350" aren't, so I'm hoping that they might fit the little Yam without too much modding, or else I'll build some expansion chambers, once I teach myself to use my new TIG welder. One thing at a time though, I'm looking forward to my new K0 bitsa to arrive, and take it for a (slightly illegal) ride.    

[grcamna2]

Terry-Bob,will it be a 'red neck' bitsa also 

[Terry in Australia]

Terry-Bob,will it be a 'red neck' bitsa also 

Ha ha, definitely Bill, I think I'll start my own bike shop, "Uncle Terry's Redneck Motorcycle Bitsa Emporium"!

[grcamna2]

  LOL 

[RAFster122s]

Yeah, the run on toilet paper was monsterous here! The memes and jokes of it and even articles giving the scientist or psychologically reasons to explain why people were hoarding and stockpiling TP for a RESPIRATORY virus.
Too funny. I had bought a 12 pack before the hoarding hit and it lasted me until last week. Women use much more TP than men will.
Bidet seats or even bidets or bidet equipped toilets have become more popular in America. First experienced a Bidet equipped seat in an apartment the company rented in Japan back in the mid 90s on a business trip to Tokyo area. Myself and four other guys shared the three bedroom apartment. I got to sleep on the pull out sofa bed, it was surprisingly comfortable. The apartment was very modern and spacious and it was a good experience and I enjoyed my time in Makahari where the joint venture partner's office was and our apartment was a couple train stops further outside Makahari. It was interesting seeing the culture and school kids in uniform. One morning a young guy on a small displacement motorcycle pops a wheelie after his light changes and lets out a series of war hoops as he rides the wheelie for 100 feet or more. He was in uniform too with a backpack like many of his classmates. All the young girls were twittering with giggles and laughter  and most of the adults too. So un-Japanese of him...
Stay safe Terry... Yes, tragic that COVID has affected the workd. I don't understand in many ways why America has been hit hard but in others I do. Known some to have died from it and very large church I attend has had 3 suicides this past year related to COVID. All young people I think...I didn't know any of them but it is a church of 2500-3000 before CCP SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19. Lots of bizarre/unusual causes of death as well in past year.
Despite that we have continued to meet with social distancing practices and high levels of protection for everyone and masks required. No outbreaks or cases of tge vurus...attendance is much lower and we dropped to two services instead of three but Stream the service online. Many choose that method of participation and we did streaming long before the virus. We did the necessary changes to allow us to stream the worship music as well, licensing and royalties have to be paid, so now you can stream the full service or just the sermon. We were shutdown fir 3 months I think when under mandatory lockdown. I like the streaming but I am prefer in person and have travelled the long distance when we are open for service. Helps my mental health... It is 35 miles away from where I live and I knew this when I chose to live here. I live out in the desert and the rent is cheaper and I have some space around the double wide trailer I rent. Rent has skyrocketed this year and housing too as Californians and others  have bid higher than the asking and bidding wars. Then landlords have upped their prices a lot as demand went up. Some rentals of houses kicked out people for material eviction reasons or lease violations to sell the house at much higher profit. So, we have serious housing problems and estimates are about 2400 families whom will be evicted when the moratorium lapses on evictions. There will be no place for them to go. Even if they could find a place they cannot afford it. Many whom are being evicted went through job loss and cannot pay back rent or back mortgage payments and are suffering for that. Problem is there is $30 M in federal funding available but Tucson city and county groups responsible for distribution of the assistance haven't met to release those funds and it will take them 10 weeks to go through and process all those request backlog and approve those funds and cut those checks. It will be too late as end of March the floodgates of evictions get turned on again. Eviction orders by courts older than 45 days only need resubmitted for signature to reauthorize those evictions, no court appearance required  Active evictions less than 45 days old will be enforced first.
This same scenario will play out across America. Some state governors have issued moratorium on evictions for lack of payment due to job loss/covid. Eviction on your credit report makes it nearly impossible to get a place to rent or buying is also severely affected...
So, this Chinese virus has impacted many and not just from the virus itself.

[Terry in Australia]

Yep, the whole Covid thing sucks, we were lucky that our federal government banned tourists from China very early last year, which made us very unpopular with the Chinese Communist Party, but they can get fcuked, they knew how transmissible the virus is and purposely allowed Chinese tourists to spread the disease all over the world so that their enemies (pretty much every other country in the world except Russia and North Korea) wouldn't have a financial, or military advantage over them. I won't comment on why other countries were so slow to do anything like Oz did, but there are a lot of politicians world wide with blood on their hands.

But I digress. Today I was back at the ol' virtual coalmine, dreaming about my latest K0 project, on a truck slowly heading in my direction, and (possibly lucky for me when the wife sees it) will arrive on my birthday. In the meantime, I need to keep moving forward to finish the K2 Bitsa's engine build. Now that I'm 99% sure that I've removed all of the sealant from the engine, I still had the oil tank and lines, sump pan, oil filter housing and oil pump to clean. I did the oil tank first, as the super expensive degreaser was pretty grimy after cleaning the engine cases, head and cylinder block, and I wanted to change it before I did the oil pump etc.

K2 Tuesday 9 Mar 2021 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

K2 Tuesday 9 Mar 2021 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

So after dumping 50 bucks worth of degreaser on some weeds, I flushed out the ultrasonic cleaner, hosed out the (now very clean) oil tank and hoses, hung them in my industrial oven to dry @ 60 deg C while I cleaned some more stuff. The sump pan, oil pump and pistons came out like brand new, that Simple Green extreme aircraft cleaner is super expensive, but geez it does a good job, check out these pistons!

K2 Tuesday 9 Mar 2021 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

K2 Tuesday 9 Mar 2021 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The sump pan and oil filter canister came out just as nice, so I flushed everything with water, then dried them with compressed air, and dumped the oil pump in the sump pan that I filled with ATF and rotated the pump gear until I had ATF coming out of every orifice. I air dried the pistons, and sprayed them with WD40 and installed them on the conrods. I was a bit puzzled because I'd removed them all in the same way that I intended to install them on this engine, and suddenly realised that the person who'd installed them, had installed them all backwards? Bloody hell, the arrow is supposed to point to the exhaust side of the cylinder head, you dumbass! Luckily he'd only used the stock cam, so there was no valves hitting pistons, thank God.

By this stage it was after 7pm and I was losing my ability to concentrate due to over-imbibing of my favourite health drink, so I packed it all up and covered everything up. Tomorrow, hopefully I'll have the cylinder block and head back on and torqued down. Fingers crossed.

K2 Tuesday 9 Mar 2021 9 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[RAFster122s]

Yes, it does a really nice job cleaning. I would be tempted to save it and let the dirt settle out then pour off into another bucket the cleaner solution for cleaning stuff like outer covers that do not have passageways. The MetalRescue/Evaporust is designed to be reused.  BTW, it is likely Oxalic Acid, aka Wood Bleach, and it is much cheaper to mix your own with pound to the gallon in hot water  and reuse it until it quits working so well.
It won't attack good metal...just the rust as it is  reactive with rust but bare steel not so much. It chelates the rust. Likely not to pinhole a tank unless the rust is already pretty far gone.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks David, there was mucho oil floating on top of the old degreaser. and considering that I had to clean the oil pump, pan and filter canister, I couldn't be bothered trying to save it and gave the weeds a good dose.

Today was the "Make or break" day for me, one of the jobs I hate the most is fitting the cylinder block over the pistons without breaking a ring. It's easier to install stock pistons into stock cylinders, because Honda (or Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha etc) provide a nice big chamfer to help slide the pistons in without busting a ring, but when you bore the sleeves out an extra 4mm, suddenly there's very little chamfer, so there's lots of poking and prodding with fingernails, screwdrivers, and even a big cable tie was used to help compress the rings without busting any, which would have been bad. The worst thing was I had to do it twice, as just after I'd worked the last ring into the #1 bore I realised that the top of the  camchain tensioner assembly was still outside the block, and I had to lift the block back off to poke it back in, then I had to re-fit the rings again. Oh well, I finally sorted it, and was happy that the pistons were in, and no busted rings.

K2 Bitsa 10 Mar 2021 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Now I hate people slathering Threebond case sealant over gaskets, but I do like copper gasket spray, so once I found all the dowels for the fancy new cylinder block seals and put them in place, I found a new 836cc head gasket, and gave it a good spraying on both sides. I let it dry completely, then dropped it in place.

K2 Bitsa 10 Mar 2021 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The head went on next, and I found the best 16 head nuts from a pile that I've acquired over the last few builds. I degreased them and their washers, then gave them a coat of WD40, and sprayed a little WD 40 on the cylinder stud threads, then progressively torqued them down to 20 foot pounds. Yes I know, the book says 15 or 16, but I've always taken them down to 20, and they don't leak. I'll back them all out again tomorrow then torque them down to 20 again, and then install the 6 x 6mm bolts, glue in the pucks, replace the oil jet and O rings, install the cam and cam towers, install and time the Andrews A Grind cam, and tighten the cam chain.

By then it'll be ready to shove back in the frame, and go for some rides, should be good. More tomorrow, if I survive my 61st birthday.

K2 Bitsa 10 Mar 2021 7 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

 

   

[BenelliSEI]

Now I hate people slathering Threebond case sealant over gaskets, but I do like copper gasket spray, so once I found all the dowels for the fancy new cylinder block seals and put them in place, I found a new 836cc head gasket, and gave it a good spraying on both sides. I let it dry completely, then dropped it in place.


Terry...... which spray works best?

[Alan F.]

Happy B-day Terry!