A Little Bit Cleaner

Not a massive amount of progress tonight.
Completed the crankcase assembly by adding the side ecasings.
Again it turns out that there are a lot of screws missing.
This isn't such a big problem as I'd already decided to depart from "standard" in this respect and do what I did with the original bike.
I'm going to replace all the crappy philips head screws with allen screws wherever possible. By using steel screws you get a much better appearance and you avoid the knackered heads which inevitably occur with the alloy screws from Suzuki.
A few photos to show the slightly clean engine.
It is starting to be recognisable but there's a long long long way to go!!!

Drawing the line

Having time on a Thursday evening is unusual but every oportunity counts.
Time to fix the crancases together. This will let me clean them a lot easier than when they are separate as they are very awkward to handle. Plus it gives the advantage that the parts are inside, protected and out of the way.
I'm not sealing the cases as they will have to come apart to replace the oil seals and the corroded thrust washer (no joy so far in finding a supplier for either!).

Time to clean up the bolts. 21 in all and in the usual grimy condition


Well now we have a first - missing parts. No washers or split washers for the bolts. Well to be precise, no split washers and only 3 washers.
If this is the worst of the missing parts this is going to be a dream!
Degreasing with the Auto Glym followed by a couple of hours with wire brushes soon attained the desired results.


Now its time to put them to work.
The manual makes it relatively easy to identify which bolts go where by giving a count of each size and showing on the line drawing where they should be placed.
First problem here is with the bolt which is inside the oil pump housing. Very awkward to get at.


The socket couldn't reach after about 3 turns! Also difficult to get in with a spanner. The solution - 1/8" drive socket. Nice and easy.
Now for another first - the manual has got it wrong (I'm certain this won't be the only time this comes up!). The numbering of the bolts is not quite right. The two outer #8 bolts should acually be #9 and the two #9 bolts are then the other two #8. Simple really. Possible that this is a change by Suzuki between models in which case I shouldn't be blaming the manual at all!!!

All set for cleaning up the crankcases now.

One excellent feature of the manual is the line drawings. They are really works of art giving such detail and so clearly. I have included the relevant ones below.
As a totally incompetent artist I find them incredible and can sit and look at them for hours (sad me!), especially the first one shown which is the complete Power and Transmission Assembly.

(Note: If you click on the image it will show you the full size picture)

Power and Transmission


Cylinders and Air Cleaner


Clutch


Crankcases


Pistons and Crankshaft


Gear Clusters


Gear Change Mechanism


Kickstarter


Carburettor


Alternator and Ignition


Fantastic stuff!!!

More at the weekend hopefully!

Monday afternoon - getting somewhere!

What to do on a Monday afternoon on a day off work?
Time to get dirty!
But before that a quick comment on yesterdays MotoGP.
Fantastic day at Donnington despite wet weather which made the racing more exciting with the changable track conditions.
Record crowds reported at over 90,000.


Great result for Scott Reading, shame about Bradley (just too eager!) in 125's.
Brilliant win for Hiroshi Aoyama in 250's.
Amazing race in MotoGP with the Ducati team making a terrible blunder in tyre choice and many riders dropping it at unexpected moments (even Rossi!!!! - marvelous recovery though). Well done to Dovi for the win but the ride of the day must go to Colin Edwards - 1 more lap and he'd have won!

Back to business.
Target today is to get the gearbox assembled to see if there's anything missing or damaged.
The mainshaft gear cluster assembly was relatively straightforward with no issues until I got to the bottom gear!
This had been kept separate from the rest and was wrapped in a felt cloth along with the thrust washers and needle bearing. Problem was that the felt had been damp at some point and there was a lot of corrosion on the gear and the bearing.
It took a couple of hours to get things cleaned and get the bearing freed up. The bearing will definately need replacing bofore final assembly but the rest cleaned up well. Locating the mainshafet was relatively simple but the Haynes manual fell short with the advice to "make note of the arrangement of the grear selection mechanism when dissembling to allow re-assembly". This was not a lot of help but it turned out to be difficult to get it wrong (I hope!).


The layshaft was less of a problem in that all parts were assembled on the shaft and there was no corrosion issue. However, there was a lot of grit and debris entrained in the gears. This required a full strip and clean which didn't take too long but there was grit in the main bearing which made ugly grinding sounds when the shaft was rotated.
WD40 to the rescue again! A liberal spraying into the bearing while turning washed out the grit faily quickly and left the bearing running smoothly (after oiling). Installing the layshaft was abit more difficult in terms of getting everything aligned but the result was fine.


I've just noticed that the 5th gear on the mainshaft and 3rd gear on the layshaft look rusty on the photo's. This is not the case, they are just made from different material.
Kickstart installation was simple and then time to move on to the crankshaft.
Another problem of storage and corrosion where it had been sitting on something damp.


As you can see the corrosion was quite heavy and it took the best part of an hour to get it cleaned up using a combination of fine wire brush, brass brush and Brasso applied with 00 wire wool. Not sure if the pitting which remains will affect the balance but I don't think the difference will be critical on this type of machine - not as if it will be running like a MotoGP engine!
Had to be careful to clean away wire wool debris afterwards.


The crankshft dropped in nicely but the outer oil seal is definately needing replaced


Well that's it for today. I'll have to look for replacement oil seals and also the needle bearing for the bottom gear. e-bay here I come!

Moving forward slowly

Not too much time spent today, only 2 or 3 hours, but some nice results!
Started on the bottom crankcase to get rid of oil/grease and lightly polish inner surfaces.


As you can see there was heavy muck inside the LH near the neutral switch.
The Auto Glym worked a treat, with the help of a toothbrush of course, but this still left some heavy deposits in some very awkward spaces.
The answer came in the form of the ever popular WD40 which turned out to be an excellent cleaner when combined with some cotton buds. See results below!



Obviously still some work to do on the outside but this is well on the way to ready for assembling the gearbox and crankshaft.

The next task was to clean the very tough deposits in the crankshaft housing.
This turned out to be quite stubborn and resisted several solvents etc. but the sjob became quite easy with a combination of a piece of 00 wire wool and some Brasso!
About 5 minutes later and it was spotless!!!


So this just leaves the deposits from the old gasket to remove and then I'll move on to the top casing, probably on Monday.

Back from travels

I see that there have been some "hits" on the site so I'm doing this post as a general update.
I'm just back from a couple of weeks business travel so there has been no work but there should be time today before heading off to the MotoGP at Donnington on Sunday.
So hopefully there should be some progress to report!

Getting started

Not quite got round to a plan as such.
Did start an inventory but decided to get started with a bit more active work yesterday.
After three trips to the dump I can now get things spread out to work on while not having to move everything else out of the garage! Makes life a lot easier.
A visit to the local car spares (Sewell's in Mill Lane, Billingham) and an interesting chat got supplies of Swafega and best recommended cleaning agents.
For oily/greasy elements they suggested "Auto Glym Engine and Machine Cleaner" and "Autosol Metal Polish" for the best results. I added a tin of Brasso for nostalgia!


Car Care, Car & Motorcycle Covers, Battery Chargers and more at The Ultimate Finish


Autosol - Quality Polishes and Cleaners


Observant people (assuming ANYONE is every going to read this!!) will notice the LH engine cover in the background. This was the first test of the degreaser and it proved extremely effective. An old toothbrush allowed even the most awkward areas to be thoroughly cleaned. I don't have a "before" photo for this as I didn't even think of the "blog" - I'm a bit of a dinosaur w.r.t. these things.

Anyway, after the side cover I decided to tackle the cylinder head (this time there is a "before photo!!!"




Now the lack of a plan shows up.
Not too easy to clean and polish the aluminium but the fins!!!!
After an afternoon and evening (off and on) I realised that this is a big piece of work unless I take the easy option and get it grit blasted or such and that goes against the purpose of the exercise. If anyone expects to look at this blog in a couple of weeks or months and see a finished project I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place.

Time for a re-think.

The original idea had been to sort out the crankcases and get the gearbox assembled so that's now the formal plan - but starting next time!