That's a fine quality kit you've got going! For the show bikes I've built they have been popular and simple enough to install. I made a flat steel (1/4" thick) plate in the shape of the oil pan for protecting the engines (and frames) on the way in - it's a snug fit - and then installed the Sump Thing afterward, not hard to do. Your oil-level window is a nice touch, too. ![Smiley :)](http://forums.sohc4.net/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
Back in the 1970s someone was making a similar conversion to yours, but sans window. It was popular with chopper builders back then: they would drop in one of Russ Collins' 1000cc kits and then the tankless conversion, but it held so little oil then that they changed it every 1000 miles (2 quarts was all it held). Yours holds more than that, though, a good thing. AND it can be checked, a great improvement! ![Cheesy :D](http://forums.sohc4.net/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
Thanks man! Appreciate it! It’s good to hear that the install process goes smoothly.
Good info about the previous guy who made such a unit. Any more info on that?
He was a guy in California circa 1970 or so when I first heard about the kit. If I can somehow find the name again I'll post it up, but your parts are much better made. He didn't have the nice CNC equipment like you have, it was just made on a per-each basis, like so many other California Custom industries of the 70s were. They looked like the top and bottom were flat-ground on a Blanchard or maybe a surfacing table like for car engine heads, because the grain marks were still pretty deep. The instructions included using Permatex#2 as the sealant on the gaskets, which is famous for its ability to stay flexible and endures hot oil well - but it is ugly when installed because it always blooms out of the joints when it heats up the first time and seals. If you then cut away the black ridge it makes, it will weep. Hondabond is better, but I don't think it is thick enough to seal those old machining marks: this is where yours excels - with nice gasket surfaces. ![Smiley :)](http://forums.sohc4.net/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
Would love to get more info or even pictures of such a thing. #$%*ing awesome somebody tried it before. Very curious how he managed to get oil re-routed to the gearbox without a cnc machine. Gave me some serious headaches haha
He never advertised except once that I saw in Choppers magazine. Where yours has the nice block for the oil pump to sit upon, his was a separate piece, very fiddly to install when laying halfway under the bike with oil dripping on the face. There were some (3) real long bolts to hold the pump and block up into the drive gear for the pump, and there was no screen on the bottom for the sump pickup part of it. After the pump went in there was a real hard-to-do task of fitting over-thick O-rings into the section where the oil hoses had to connect to the pump block (that's what I called it) with airtight connections, and this was the hard part of it, because the pan had to be installed at the same time with those O-rings: I greased them to stay in place because I kept knocking them off while trying to raise the pan up in between the frame, by Braille, because you couldn't see to do it. The oversized bolt holes tended to weep oil, so they (not mine) would get sealant pushed up inside of them, or in my case I added thin rubber washers and flat washers. In the end I didn't finish doing it myself as I had Finals Week at the college, and one of my shop mechanics got it working. He also told me not to offer to do another one, or else "you can do it yourself next time". Not a rave review?
The outer pan was nicely polished, though, which was mandatory for chopper parts in those days.
![Cheesy :D](http://forums.sohc4.net/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)