Where'd we leave off? Oh yeah. There was a puddle of oil in that cavity above the clutch on the right side of the engine. No real trail of oil from anywhere though. So I'm suspecting the cam chain tensioner. We pulled it off for checking. The gasket came off clean with the tensioner body. A while back there was a thread on the ORing in the body that the plunger passes thru. But its not sold as a separate part. If it did leak the oil would only come out the end of the housing? Should be obvious.
The housing itself was actually very dry inside. In fact there was a fibrous material (spiderweb?) in the housing!
I'll figure something out. Clean it up real good, goop the gasket and reinstall.
Remembering back to the summer when we actually started and ran it a while, it was smoking real bad. Mostly a blue white color. Besides my problem there have been other threads here about smokers. Some posters said they had luck leaning the carbs down a bit. I know all about its not the right color smoke blah blah. People said it worked and they had their reasons. So I want to be ready to give it a try. And the baseline is to know what is in there now.
I got my spare set off the shelf to practice removing the jets. This can be done with the floatbowls still on, thru a cute access hole in the bottom. The main jet and the emulsion tube will come out.
It had 112.5 mains and some odd numbering system on the tube. I'll have to call Z1 to see what else is available. Having refreshed my memory on the removal, I took the ones out of the carbs on the bike. They too are 112.5s. Both carbs set up the same way. So I'll get a set of 110s. I don't really have much hope that is the problem, but can't hurt.
OThers suggested that i simply didn't have enough run time on the motor to expect it to be smoke free. That doesn't comfort me much either as I have built many motors (not recently) that never smoked after the briefest of run times. Nevertheless... But i couldn't get much run time on the bike as the front end wasn't working, locked solid. So that took some time to rectify. Got many suggestions the best being to simply disassemble them at least remove the wheel fender brakes, springs, then work them up and down and round and round. This was discussed a few pages back in the thread. IT actually took some effort to get the lower legs to move. But after several sessions like a physical therapist they finally loosened up. They are the older style forks with bushings and collars and I think the oil just never got a chance to get in everywhere and coat everything. Then it sat for quite some time and just stuckified.
Today when I dropped it off the center stand to push it out of the electricians way, it sagged about an inch and half and was easily compliant with my efforts. Hoping it will ride nice. I'll put some miles on it when the weather breaks. IF that doesn't fix the smoking, it'll be a top end job. Of course everything is fresh in the top now, so that's a little discouraging. I suppose I could have put the scrapers in upside down. I used the old style exhaust guides that don't have seals. But that should be allright, the K0s didn't smoke. Course they didn't have the mind boggling compression this thing has. The well respected machinist reused the Manley valves I had in the previous engine. I'd asked him too if they were still in spec. He said they were, but maybe I should have gone new. But whatever it takes is what it will get.
So even though it was running and nominated for bike of the month, I knew it was premature. Someone else more deserving, and complete, won. We still had several subsystems to work out. The oil tank was wet sumping, so we pulled the pump, cleaned the check valve and reinstalled. That was good Karma as the pump screen was covered with fibrous material, diagnosed to be the old clutch I tried to reuse. So now its got a new APE clutch.
Horns, relays, trans ignition, functioning sidestand, were all things to be done, and now are. The instruments are next. I've got a NOS K1 tach I'm going to have a K0 face with the 8500 redline installed. Then for the speedo, I'm having it recalibrated to be accurate with the 18" wheel. Now that Lecram has repro housings I can send them off for the work. We'll put a K0 face in it as well to match the tach.
There's probably something else I'm missing...oh gotta have a centerstand cut down for the lower ride height. And about finally, I'll have a minimalist chain guard made to keep the lube from flinging on me and the other. That's all for now. This is my busy time of year at work. Squeezing out shop time will be difficult, but I think the plan has enough time before May. If it doesn't quit smoking, the motor will be a summer job. Not the best timing for asking Mike for help. But I'll just get in line and wait my turn. I've got other things to work on and hopefully ride.
