Well it's my 54th birthday today, so I took the day off work so I could spend my birthday playing with my 'Wang.
The weather hasn't cooled down here yet, so my poor old 'Wang was suffering in the heat. 'Wangs are much more fun in winter than summer anyways, but as it's the only bike in my garage that's currently registered, I've been riding it in weather much better suited to my CB750.
I took it for two rides on the extra long weekend (I had yesterday off as well as it was the "Labour Day" public holiday) and both times it ran hot. Now it did run hot, despite the fact that there was plenty of nice new coolant, no leaks, the rad doesn't appear to be blocked, the thermo fan is working fine, it just ran hot.
So today I woke up early (like I do every birthday) and went out to the garage with a cup of coffee, and attacked my big black 'Wang. Like every repair job, it's always easy to rip it apart and I had the radiator out in next to no time. I tested the thermostat and the rad cap and they both seemed fine, although I decided to replace the cap with a Subaru cap I had here that looked to be in better condition. After my recent Subaru issues, and considering that the 'Wang engine is a Subaru design anyway, I "modified" the thermostat by enlarging the "Jiggle Hole", (and adding a few more) to reduce the chances of an air lock in the cooling system.
While I had everything apart, I decided to check the cam timing. When I did the engine swap a year ago I wasn't 100% happy with my valve timing attempt, but hey, the bike ran and I didn't bend any valves, so I put it's slightly "Cammy" idle and flat spot off idle down to the fact that I didn't even clean the carbs that have been ignored for the (almost) 100,000 miles that the old 'Wang has covered since 1986, on at least 3 continents.
It only took a minute to realize that the timing was retarded by a tooth on each bank of cylinders, so another 20 minutes had the timing spot on, and when I hit the starter it ran way smoother, and the "flat spot" disappeared too, so I can ignore the carbs for another 100,000 miles, or 28 years, whichever comes first.
On top of that, regardless of the near 90 deg F weather, I couldn't get it to overheat. All in all, a wonderful birthday. Excellent............
