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

[Terry in Australia]

Anyhoo, I'm currently dying of some horrid disease, coughing fits, aching joints, uncontrollable shaking, headache, but not blowing any snot out of my eyes yet, like when I had the Swine Flu back in 2009, thank God.

Being the tough guy that I obviously am, I still dragged myself out of my death-bed to mail off a set of CR carbs I sold on ebay, and to drop off my manky K2 frame to get abrasive blasted. The good thing is that there's no damage to repair like there is on my K0 frame, so once it's done I can hit it with some paint, and start bolting parts up to it. Good times.

I've got 3 separate exhaust systems to choose from, a 4 into 1 (will need to be modified, don't know what it's off) a set of 4 into 2 drag pipes that I've had since I was 20 that are still in great condition but desperately need baffles, or a set of 4 into 2 mufflers with "turnouts", (that'll need baffles too) that I bought from a member here many years ago.

I'm leaning towards the last option, they've been around forever, folks used to buy them to replace rotten OEM mufflers, using their original headers. Mine aren't quite as nice as these, but they'll clean up fine. They're definitely "Old School", but that's OK, so am I.



I also did some ebay trawling and found a set of tapered roller bearings for it. I need to go thru some more tubs of used parts to see what else I still have to source to put this thing together, I'm pretty sure I have all the big bits, but there'll probably be things I haven't thought about yet, we'll see. Cheers, Terry.    

[PeWe]

If the swamp women does not attract you, they sure will after a half bottle of moonshine! Strange, but it works... some ugly ones look really hot after some ethanol. "Women enhancer" could be a name on a bottle.

[martin99]

I like those turn-out pipes Terry, nothing wrong with a bit of old-school and good to be able to use period stuff and not worry about originality.

Hope you feel better soon mate, man-flu is no joke, bet you're not getting any sympathy from the missus either which probably isn't surprising as most women only have the pain of childbirth to compare which as we men know doesn't even come close to man-flu discomfort...

[Stev-o]

I like those turn-out pipes Terry...

He wont use them now if a Brit likes 'em!

[Terry in Australia]

Not true Steve, I actually respect Martin's opinion, and gentle piss taking is something that Poms and Aussies enjoy almost as much as reminding the Germans just who won the war!

I've just sent Nic the money for his Yamiya repro HM300's for my 1969 K0 build, Nic is a top bloke too and he gave me an offer I couldn't refuse, but even so, the price of slightly used "original" (and of course in this case the word only refers to the look, not the authenticity) was still enough to buy a new Delkevic system for both the K0 and K2 plus shipping and still have change, but what the heck, I've always thought that a K0 resto wasn't really complete until the bike had some 4 into 4's on it.

Luckily my K2 build isn't a resto, (far from it!) so I can use whatever is sitting in tubs in my garage, which will make for a quick build, and keep the costs down significantly. Cheers, Terry.

[martin99]

I like those turn-out pipes Terry...

He wont use them now if a Brit likes 'em!

Hmmm, never occurred to me to use the old reverse psychology trick.

I like Harleys too...   

[Terry in Australia]

Then get one Martin! "join us, join us........"

[BobbyR]

You would make a fine redneck mate. You just would not be a dumb redneck. A bit of country music to sip the Bourbon by would complete the picture.

 I tried chewing tobacco but carrying a can around was a pain in the ass. Now, you have to eat grits. If you don't eat grits you will be found out in a second. I learned to tolerate them and say something like, "damn been a long time since I had so grits like this. Almost as good as my Momma made(Momma is Italian and would not know it grit if it hit her in the ass). 

Quote your Daddy a lot. " like my Daddy used to say" All my Daddy used to say was "shut up, don't be stupid or who told you that" Just make #$%* up.

Well I think I will go on sit a spell, have some good whiskey, put some Oak Ridge boys on. My Daddy used to say, "Son, tell the truth, shoot straight and keep your whiskey handy"

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, well I'm more of a "Soggy Bottom Boys" fan Bobby, but I think I understand what you mean? I didn't know what grits are, so I did a google search, and it appears that "Grits" are just an American version of "Polenta", of which your ma was probably an expert cook? All my dad ever said to me when I was a kid was "Jesus Christ!" so often that I actually thought my name was Jesus Christ until I was thirteen..........

[Terry in Australia]

Anyhoo, back to the wonderful build! Michael from ADA rang me this morning to say that my frame was blasted, and I better pick it up and put some paint on it before it started to rust. No worries, another early knock off and 90 bucks, and it was ready for paint.

Terry's blasted K2 frame by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Just so you guys know I'm not just re-posting pics of my blasted K0 frame, here's the frame number, only 500,000 or so off my engine number............

Terry's blasted K2 frame 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

So I gave it a quick air dusting and some prep-washing, then it was on to my 12 dollar can of paint.

Terry's blasted K2 frame 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I've got to admit that I'm now a convert to Rustoleum paint. No primer, one coat, and it comes up probably better than Honda did it back in 1972. I did notice that the welds on the K2 improved greatly from the ones on my 1969 K0 too, which is a good thing. Anyway, the paint should be dry enough to allow me to shove the engine back in on the weekend, and start bolting up things like forks, swingarm, etc. More to follow!

[BobbyR]

Nice job mate. I have been telling people about Rustoleum for years. It is cheap, tough and chips can be cover easily just like my first girlfriend.  Carry on.

[Terry in Australia]

Yeah I'm impressed Bobby, after 30 years of having frames powder coated I'd convinced myself that it was the only way to go, but by the time you pull an engine in and out a couple of times it's gonna get chipped anyway, so (apart from the obvious cost benefit) a rattle can of Rustoleum is still a good alternative. I painted my K1 frame all those years ago with Aussie "Rustkill" enamel, and it was still shiny when I traded it for my mighty RC51 a month ago.

Yesterday I went tub scrounging in my garage to see what I had that I could use in the build, there are some tubs under my workbench that I have to move a lot of crap out of the way to get to, so I only drag them out when I'm desperate, and as I was looking for exhaust spigots and clamps for both builds, I climbed under the huge bench and was happy that I found around a dozen or so spigots and clamps, which are now sitting in the acid bath to bring them back to "as new".

I also found some nice finned covers (alternator, points and clutch) that I'll probably use, and some footpegs too, so almost giving myself a hernia was a worthwhile endevour. Today I need to paint some smaller parts and I think I'll lay the engine on it's side and lay the frame over it, and bolt that sucker in. No engine painting, this engine has never been apart, so I'm not gonna pull it apart just to paint it, and I don't have spare gaskets to remove the outer covers so I can polish them off the engine, so I'm gonna leave it how it is, slightly grotty, but as Sean says, "If it works good, it looks good". After all, this is a "Redneck" bitsa build...........      

[Terry in Australia]

Well while I haven't posted anything new in almost a month, but fear not dear readers, my projects haven't disappeared into the "Too Hard" basket, I've just been busy in the background acquiring parts or getting bits ready. Rather than restore two sets of spoked wheels, I've got a pair of Henry Abe wheels for the bitsa that someone has painted over their life, and as is always the case with any alloy casting, after many years, the paint has lifted.

I was hoping that paint stripper alone would sort it, but even though I'm using the nastiest, most aggressive stripper available here, it's not enough. Bugger. OK, so I guess that I need to get them blasted? Well I thought that wet blasting would be the go, but the only "vapor blaster" nearby is only open Mon-Fri, and of course, he's closed by the time I can get away from work. Poop.

So then I thought about using a pressure washer with the stripper? I didn't own a pressure washer, but I'm always up for a new tool, so as Pat was buying 300 bucks worth of BMW parts from me, I started looking for pressure washers, and was pleasantly surprised to see a 4800 psi 8 HP gas powered one on sale on ebay for under 300 bucks, (plus another 60 for freight from Sydney) sweet!

While I was researching pressure washers, I found lots of mentions on the 'net of wet blasting using a special sandblasting attachment on a pressure washer, and even found some pretty impressive vids on youtube of folks stripping the paint off entire cars, trailers, engines, pickup trucks etc, so I thought, "I've gotta get me one of them!". 

Supercheap Auto had them advertised on special for 80 bucks, but after phoning 4 different stores who were all out of stock, I decided that there was nothing for it, but to buy a more professional version from a pressure washer supplier for just over 160 bucks. Bloody hell.............. Anyway the washer and the sand blasting attachment arrived around the same time last week, and yesterday I spent an hour or so of unboxing everything and putting it together.

Everything was going fine, I assembled the pressure washer, filled the little "Honda knockoff" engine with oil and fuel, connected my garden hose and fired it up, and it worked brilliantly. I then unboxed the sandblaster attachment to discover that it didn't have an adapter to connect it to the washer's wand? WTF??? It had a big brass threaded lug, but no male quick connect, FCUK! Great, I had the pressure washer ready to go, a couple of buckets of grit, and a nice sunny winters day. Oh well, after playing with the washer cleaning overspray off the concrete frome where I painted both frames, I had nothing to do but put it away.

This morning I searched the website where I bought the sandblasting attachment from, and sure enough, they have the part, for around 30 bucks, but of course being the weekend, they were closed. I searched the Bunnings and Supercheap sites, but to no avail. Fcuking great.............

Well necessity is the mother of invention, so I ratted thru my boxes of bits looking for something with an internal 22mm thread. (I don't have a metric tap that big) I pulled out an old CB750 oil tank hose, and was 'rapt to see that one of the fittings was a perfect fit! Woohoo! CB750 to the rescue!     

I chopped the fitting off the end of the hose and took a peek at what I had. Sadly the hole in the Honda fitting was too big, so I found a scrap piece of 20mm alloy bar, to machine up a male quick release fitting that would work with the Honda "Nut".

After some careful (unusual for me) measuring, I made up a pretty good facsimile of the original, and was happy that it was a nice snug fit into the female fitting. It mounted straight up to the pressure washer's wand, and I was happy that there were no leaks, or pressure loss.

Wet blaster adapter 9 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr


So I'd love to say that once I'd made my beaut adapter I spent the afternoon happily beadblasting all the paint off my wheels and swingarm, but for some reason the sand wasn't getting sucked out of the bucket, maybe because there were a few lumps therein, so I'll do some more research tonight, then tomorrow I strain my blasting media to make sure that's not the problem. One fcuking thing, after another.............

[Terry in Australia]

Okay, so this weekend, I decided to pull the engine out of the garage and get it ready for action! I say "out of the garage" because I'm doing most of my work in my patio as my garage is so full of bikes and parts I don't have anywhere else to work on my bikes. Of course, it only got to 12 deg C (53 deg F) and was a bit windy too, but I rugged up and was quite comfortable, and I enjoyed the sunshine. 

I used my portable electric crane to pick the engine up and put it down on the bench, it really makes moving heavy engines easy.

K6 engine prep 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I haven't looked at this engine for awhile, the original story was that it was an F engine, and having exhaust studs rather than spigots I assumed this to be true, but when I checked the engine number (254XXX) I realised that it's a K6 engine, which is nice, there's no F-Ing cross contamination of a fine K bike.

K6 engine prep 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Anyhoo, first job was to remove the exhaust studs, using the double nut method. All good, no issues, all came out fine with no damage.

K6 engine prep 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Once done, I whipped the rocker cover off to take a peek at the cam and rockers. All looked remarkably good, so I pulled the spark plugs, sprayed some WD 40 on everything (and some down the plug holes) turned the engine over a few times, and checked the valve clearances. Once again, they were all very close to spot on, but I ended up adjusting them all anyway.

K6 engine prep 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I also stripped and cleaned the cam chain tensioner and adjusted the cam chain, and I know it's not very redneck, but I took the opportunity to replace the spark plugs with some nice new NGK's, they should last the next 41 years or so!

While I was at it I pulled the sump pan. There was a little sludge in the pan, but nothing to worry about I thought, until I saw this.

K6 engine prep 14 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Oh dear, that little piece looks suspiciously like a tooth off a gear? Lovely...........

Anyway, I didn't feel like stripping the engine, I'm hoping that the missing tooth is off the kick starter gear, and not the drive sprocket gear, the engine was "stuck" when it was pulled out of the Seeley, (it had been sitting, unridden for many years) so I'm wondering if someone didn't jump on the kick starter to try to turn it over and broke a tooth off? The oil pump and transmission gears are thinner, so it won't be any of them. There was no other crap at all in the engine, no tiny bits of metal, so it looks like it's just broken off and fallen into the sump.

I pulled the oil pump and flushed it with degreaser, then primed it with fresh engine oil, replaced the O rings, installed a new sump pan gasket and buttoned it back up. While I was looking, I saw that the bakelite portion of the neutral switch was all but gone, so I found a good used replacement switch and installed it.

Once upon a time, this engine lost it's drive chain in what was probably a spectacular fashion. Once I'd cleaned the old chain grease from around the sprocket area, I saw some nice welds that I'm pretty sure aren't factory, and the sprocket cover must have been smashed off, because the top bolt tore out the cast piece on the top engine case too, which has been welded back on, and the bottom bolt must have been torn out.

K6 engine prep 16 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

It still functions fine, but as I'm going to install some nice old period finned covers I had a "Mad Max" moment, I decided to use this sprocket cover that someone's Swiss cheesed. At first glance it does look pretty "ghetto" but whoever did it actually drilled all the holes in a wavy pattern that was pretty well thought out. I've got other sprocket covers here, but I do like this one, I think it suits the theme........

K6 engine prep 17 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I made the mistake of looking at the Yamiya site this morning, and before I knew it, I'd ordered 300 bucks worth of new "Big 8" bolts and screws for my K0 project, but that's OK, I needed the manky bolts so I could mount this engine in the K2 frame. I covered it in a garbage bag to keep any rain or ice off it, and called it good. More to follow in a week or two. Cheers, Terry.


   

[PeWe]

Yamiya site is good. Want this? - check
want this? - check, check check check check ....
$$$$$$$.

[madmtnmotors]

I used my portable electric crane to pick the engine up and put it down on the bench, it really makes moving heavy engines easy.

        I really like that!



Makes me feel like I've been knocked down a rung on the evolutionary ladder with my manually operated ram cylinder engine hoist:

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Terry,

The note on the engine cover said "a bit smokey."  Do you think it might need some new valve seals?

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Holey #$%*, that electric thingamajig ain't no true redneck DeVice! It's a good thing you DO have an F engine. Better check the numbers again amigo. They went from 2500001 to 2554xxx. However you show only 6 places so hopefully it's a puny K6 since OZ reds don't deserve a better engine.

[Terry in Australia]

I used my portable electric crane to pick the engine up and put it down on the bench, it really makes moving heavy engines easy.

        I really like that!



Makes me feel like I've been knocked down a rung on the evolutionary ladder with my manually operated ram cylinder engine hoist:

I love it Wilbur, I just tied the rope to the engine mounts and raised the boom a little, then wheeled it from my garage up to the Redneck Patio workshop, then raised it up to the level of the bench top. I've got a big car engine crane, but I haven't used it since I scored the patient lifter.

[Terry in Australia]

Yamiya site is good. Want this? - check
want this? - check, check check check check ....
$$$$$$$.

Ha ha, you're not wrong Pewe, I found all the bolts I needed and got the fcuk out of there while I still had some money left!

[PeWe]

Really install engine in the fresh frame and all work when it can be a smoker (not ganja) and eventual gear problem?
I should open it, check bores, pistons, rings valves and seats.
Replace chains if stretched plus hard bakelite tensioners when open.
New gears cost not much on eBay or you might have.
But it will cost. Only complete gasket set and oil seals cost some.

[Terry in Australia]

Terry,

The note on the engine cover said "a bit smokey."  Do you think it might need some new valve seals?

It could do mate, Peter, the guy I bought it and the F2 engine from said that the engine was stuck so he'd tipped ATF into the cylinders, and the engine oil was filthy as well, so I reckon I'll just run some seafoam in the first fill of oil and do a couple of hundred miles, dump it, fill it with fresh oil and install another new filter, and see how it goes.

I used my "finger in the spark plug hole" compression tester and all cylinders had compression, so I hope it's just stuck rings, but we'll see, it's all part of the fun.  

[Terry in Australia]

Really install engine in the fresh frame and all work when it can be a smoker (not ganja) and eventual gear problem?
I should open it, check bores, pistons, rings valves and seats.
Replace chains if stretched plus hard bakelite tensioners when open.
New gears cost not much on eBay or you might have.
But it will cost. Only complete gasket set and oil seals cost some.

Ha ha, I've rebuilt many CB750 engines Pewe, and this is probably the best used engine I've had, apart from what's probably stuck rings and that one busted tooth, it's a really good clean engine so I'm happy to shove it in the frame, but if the worst becomes the worst, I can have the engine out, fixed, and back in over one weekend. I've got everything here to do a full rebuild, (including spare gears) but if it's all good, I'll use that stuff for my K0 build. Cheers, Terry.  

[Terry in Australia]

Holey #$%*, that electric thingamajig ain't no true redneck DeVice! It's a good thing you DO have an F engine. Better check the numbers again amigo. They went from 2500001 to 2554xxx. However you show only 6 places so hopefully it's a puny K6 since OZ reds don't deserve a better engine.

Ha ha, not Redneck enough Jerry? What if said I stole it from a hospital, complete with a patient hooked up? Not true of course, but anything for that Redneck tag...... And you're right about the F engine numbers, I desperately searched everywhere for a reference that said I was right, but I just fcuked up, whereas the K6 frame numbers started with 254001, it looks like the engines started at 242XXX and finished around 247XXX? Weird..........

[BobbyR]

Holey #$%*, that electric thingamajig ain't no true redneck DeVice! It's a good thing you DO have an F engine. Better check the numbers again amigo. They went from 2500001 to 2554xxx. However you show only 6 places so hopefully it's a puny K6 since OZ reds don't deserve a better engine.

Ha ha, not Redneck enough Jerry? What if said I stole it from a hospital, complete with a patient hooked up? Not true of course, but anything for that Redneck tag...... And you're right about the F engine numbers, I desperately searched everywhere for a reference that said I was right, but I just fcuked up, whereas the K6 frame numbers started with 254001, it looks like the engines started at 242XXX and finished around 247XXX? Weird..........

A true redneck would have no engine hoist. You throw a rope over a tree limb and you commence pulling until you can roll the vehicle away. You drag one of the old washing machines in the yard over and that be your engine stand. Be careful not to damage the tub inside the washing machine as that will be used for getting your mash started come the season to make some corn squeezins.  City folk. Bah!