Topic: Terry's Boneyard Barn find Budget Suzuki T500 Reanimation.

[Alan F.]

Another good, solid repair.
Cheers Terry.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Alan, I'm pretty happy with it, and also pretty happy that it was as easy as it was, all I need now is the sleep I've lost over the last few nights worrying about how I was gonna fix it!

[Kelly E]

Are you going to smooth out the repair so it hardly shows?

[Terry in Australia]

Are you going to smooth out the repair so it hardly shows?

It won’t show mate, it’s behind the clutch cover, so I’ll clean it up a little bit but don’t need to sacrifice strength for show in this case.

[Alan F.]

Yeah I could use the sleep I missed yesterday and today from starting early and getting home late.

[Terry in Australia]

I really shouldn't b1tch about losing sleep, ever since I started "working from home" last year (we were locked down for 267? days from March last year until a couple of weeks ago) I haven't had to get up until 0730, (for the last 4 years I've been getting up at 5 to be at work by 6) so have had plenty more opportunity for sleep, and I will continue to do so until going back to work next year. Up until a couple of months ago though, sleep eluded me due to a combination of anxiety and pain (chronic arthritis/bursitis in both shoulders, hips, knees, back, neck and hands) so most of the extra time I had to get some zzz's was spent staring at the ceiling. Oh well, life could definitely be worse, I could be "Life Deficient", which wouldn't be much fun at all.

Back to T500 talk. Much to my disappointment, I found that setting the ignition timing with my dial indicator was a bit too finicky to satisfy myself that I had it "spot on", and then a week or two ago, I was watching someone on Youtube timing a different 2 stroke bike, and they were using a digital dial indicator? I have to admit, I never knew that such a thing existed, even though it makes perfect sense, you can buy a digital vernier or micrometer, so why not have a digital dial indicator too? I jumped on Ebay and bought one right away!

Of course it hasn't turned up yet though, so I don't know if it'll fit my spark plug hole adapter or not, but while I was trawling thru Ebay for interesting tools, I found this thing.

Digital height and depth guage by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr 

It was only a few bucks, and with the clip on depth probe, it should work well for doing my ignition timing for both cylinders while I have the engine out, and the heads off.

Digital height and depth guage 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I've had a great day riding both of my 2300cc Triumph Rocket III's with Spotty today, so no bike work, but I did check my repairs from yesterday and everything looks great, so I'll do a little more cleaning to remove the old case sealant from all the gasket surfaces and the rust and crud from the cylinder studs tomorrow, and start thinking about pulling the engine out.

[Alan F.]

That does look handy.

[Terry in Australia]

I do love gadgets! Well I've had a busy weekend, Spotty and I went for a 140 mile pie run on my two Triumph Rocket III's yesterday, then today I sold my Effing F2, and typically, it's the best it's been running since I bought it, so someone else will get to enjoy it even if I don't.

I did get a little time this afternoon to continue cleaning up the cases before the engine comes out so I took to the unenviable task of cleaning up the rusty cylinder studs with 240 dry sanding paper and a variety of dremel attachments that didn't do anything but break the monotony of manually sanding the studs, which was the only thing that actually worked. I did make a "Thread chaser" though, which worked well to clean the rust out of the threads, even though the rusty sections of the threaded portion of each stud are probably rusty because they were below the level of the tube nuts. No matter, my "special tool" worked well.

T500 Sunday 21 November 2021 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

T500 Sunday 21 November 2021 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

And that was about it. I turned the case over and scraped off every skerrick of sealant with a sharp blade until I got bored then sprayed the case with WD40 so nothing will rust again between now and when I assemble it, and drove over to Spotty's place to do some wheeling and dealing.

When I got back I got a message out of the blue from my mate Dion to see how I was going. Dion is an incredible custom fabricator/painter and sent me some pics of his new(to him) KZ900 drag bike that he's putting back on the street. I sent him a pic of Davey's FLH that should be here on December the 1st, and he immediately offered to paint it for me.

I explained that I couldn't paint it but was thinking about buying another set of tins and painting them, and leaving Davey's tins hanging up in my garage. He said no worries, he's got a complete set of FLH tins (he's an Outlaws MC president) so he'll paint them any colour for me and give them to me when he brings his T500 engine for me to rebuild for him. All good, we're gonna go with this.

1975_harley_davidson_flh_shovelhead_shovel_head_2_lgw by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[grcamna2]

G'day Terry  ,
Those cylinder studs look amazing and you're making progress Now ! 

[grcamna2]

Terry,how's this project doing ?

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, it's going "nowhere" this week Bill, if you've seen my other posts you'll know that I've been busy getting a Rocket III ready for a roadworthy inspection, and an eventual swap yesterday for a Valkyrie, selling my F2 and arranging for my Harley delivery next week! But just to cheer you up mate, here's a pic of the digital dial indicator that arrived yesterday, so I can do the ignition timing when I reassemble the T500 engine.

Digital dial indicator by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

And here's the Valkyrie:

Terry’s Valkyrie 23 Nov 2021 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Terry’s Valkyrie 23 Nov 2021 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[grcamna2]

Hi Terry,
I have been watching the transfer of The Big Bikes between you and Spotty 
That digital dial indicator looks good;will it work better than the Central Tool dial indicator you have ?

[spotty]

,yep, i got the zzr off terry

he got the 750K7 off me

i got the 750K7 off him

he got the valk off me

i got the R3 off him

i'm fully anticipating he'll want the zzr back when i finish it.....so give that another year or two

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, don’t do too much anticipating Spotty, that ZZR kind of put me off big modern Kawasaki’s, I think I’ll stick with old Z1’s….

[Terry in Australia]

Hi Terry,
I have been watching the transfer of The Big Bikes between you and Spotty 
That digital dial indicator looks good;will it work better than the Central Tool dial indicator you have ?

Thanks Bill, yes it will for me, my eyes aren't too good at reading the fine print any more, to while trying to do the timing last time it was blurry, and too damn fiddly. That nice big digital readout will be excellent as an alternative.

[david 750f]

Terry, those digital meters are excellent. The "zero" button comes in really handy. You can also use it to degree camshafts. I used a similar digital dial indicator to degree in my Megacycle cam.

[gifv]/gifv]

[Terry in Australia]

Terry, those digital meters are excellent. The "zero" button comes in really handy. You can also use it to degree camshafts. I used a similar digital dial indicator to degree in my Megacycle cam.

[gifv]/gifv]

Thanks David, my eyes are so bad that even with my latest pair of prescription specs I can't properly read my old Citizen watch, so when I saw those digital gauges with 20mm high digits, I jumped and bought one straight away, I could have used a cheap digital vernier, but I think this gauge will work well with the spark plug adapter from my analog dial indicator.

[grcamna2]

Terry,my only question on that nice digital meter is:will it fit between the fins on your cylinder head ?

[PeWe]

,yep, i got the zzr off terry

he got the 750K7 off me

i got the 750K7 off him

he got the valk off me

i got the R3 off him

i'm fully anticipating he'll want the zzr back when i finish it.....so give that another year or two

Bike ping-pong!
Seems to be a fun hobby

[PeWe]

I used a similar digital dial indicator to degree in my Megacycle cam.

How to set a cam without open the valve cover and adjust cam sprocket when IN open at correct degree when opened according to spec, often 0.04" (1mm) ?
Good idea to verify IN, EX open/close to get the complete picture.

Maybe a photo to show the tool only?

[Terry in Australia]

Terry,my only question on that nice digital meter is:will it fit between the fins on your cylinder head ?

Good question Bill, and your curiosity aroused mine, so I wandered out into the twilight and found a spare head, screwed the Central Tool spark plug adapter in, then plopped the digital gauge into the hole. I'll need to shim the hole as it's a loose fit at present, and I didn't think to screw one of the extensions on, but I don't think it'll be a problem, the gauge (just) fits.

Digital dial indicator in T500 head. by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[krusty]

Ha ha, it's going "nowhere" this week Bill, if you've seen my other posts you'll know that I've been busy getting a Rocket III ready for a roadworthy inspection, and an eventual swap yesterday for a Valkyrie, selling my F2 and arranging for my Harley delivery next week! But just to cheer you up mate, here's a pic of the digital dial indicator that arrived yesterday, so I can do the ignition timing when I reassemble the T500 engine.

Digital dial indicator by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

And here's the Valkyrie:

Terry’s Valkyrie 23 Nov 2021 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Terry’s Valkyrie 23 Nov 2021 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Cool cruiser. I've always liked the Valkyrie eversince they came out and I thought that if I ever considered getting a cruiser it would be top of the list. Fast forward a few years and I don't see a cruiser in my life as I now have a 89 GL1500.

[Terry in Australia]

Geez are the GL1500's that old Krusty? I must be getting old, I remember admiring one when it was new. I had a 1986(?) GL1200 Interstate (my "Wang") but as much as it was lovely, it was no good for tall riders, I was locked into a very cramped riding position. If I was only 5 feet tall it would have been lovely, but it was too cramped for my 6'4" frame, by comparison my BMW K100RT and K1100LT were much roomier.

I like the Valkyrie in that it doesn't have a lot of plastic on it (one of my other dislikes was the squeaking noise caused by all the plastic rubbing together on the "Wang") and a lot more scope for cool air to move around the rider on warmer days. (another problem on the GL1200, it got really fcuking hot behind all that plastic, and when the fans came on, it'd blow the hot air straight into the rider) I've got lots of bikes so I don't need to ride the Valk on hot days anyway, and the upside is that it'll be really comfortable on cold wet days.

[grcamna2]

Terry,my only question on that nice digital meter is:will it fit between the fins on your cylinder head ?

Good question Bill, and your curiosity aroused mine, so I wandered out into the twilight and found a spare head, screwed the Central Tool spark plug adapter in, then plopped the digital gauge into the hole. I'll need to shim the hole as it's a loose fit at present, and I didn't think to screw one of the extensions on, but I don't think it'll be a problem, the gauge (just) fits.

Digital dial indicator in T500 head. by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Yes it does.

[david 750f]

I used a similar digital dial indicator to degree in my Megacycle cam.

How to set a cam without open the valve cover and adjust cam sprocket when IN open at correct degree when opened according to spec, often 0.04" (1mm) ?
Good idea to verify IN, EX open/close to get the complete picture.

Maybe a photo to show the tool only?

PeWe, I was just double checking the timing as we were drinking a lot of beer!!! You do need the valve cover off to access the slotted cam sprocket.