Seems like a lot of posts begin with "It's been a while, but I finally have some progress to report." So here's mine.
It's been a while, but I finally have some progress to report. After I got the bike back from Takashi, who did really beautiful fabrication of mounts for the fairing, instruments, steering damper and a bunch of other stuff, I put it up on my lift and........stared at it. For months. Lights on, lights off. Lift up, lift down. Friends would come over to see it, and I'd roll it out of the garage so we could sit on it, walk around it, inspect it, and talk about it. Endlessly. They'd say "So when are you going to start taking it apart?" And I'd say "Pretty soon. First I just have to blah blah blah (insert any of several lame excuses offered up by someone afraid to commit to a big, complicated job) and then I'll pull the engine out." It just looked so cool the way it was. Since I first decided I had to have one of these, this was the closest I had come to my dream, and the idea of pulling it all apart totally intimidated me. What if I didn't have the skills to do a good job? What if I could never put it back together and it would be just a bunch of parts in boxes on the floor? What if I finished it and it wasn't fun to ride? I started thinking of a Kevin Cameron article I read years ago called "Finishing Fear", and decided to stop cheating myself out of finding out if the bike might just turn out to be exactly what I hoped it would be.
Unusable, but all in one piece.
Nothing in common. Except that I like them all the same.
It begins.
Showing up at the hospital.
Just relax. This won't hurt a bit.
There. Isn't that better?
The engine came apart pretty easily. I had to chisel out a couple of screws, but the cylinder studs came out in one piece using the double-nut-and-vice-grip method. The insides look good. Gear teeth still have the correct profile, journals are good, and shift forks are only slightly worn and well within the limits of acceptable wear. When I bought the bike, it didn't have a working speedometer, so I don't know what kind of mileage it had, but it seems to have had a relatively easy life. Luckily for me. My box of new OEM parts includes bearings, seals, chains, and tensioners and guides.
The oil was pretty dark, but the only things floating around in the pan were little pieces of the cam chain tensioner.
I swear I've seen this face before. Looks like a Mesoamerican artist's rendition of a crocodile.
So that's where the project stands right now. I brought the frame back to Takashi so he can weld some things that he couldn't reach when the engine was in the frame. I brought the crank, pistons, head, and barrels up to APE Raceparts so they can bore it out to 836, balance the crank, polish the journals, fit new rod bearings and nuts and bolts, shot-peen the rods, and install new valve guides, valves, seals, and springs.
I've overcome, for now, my finishing fear.
