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50 miles

Posted in Engine, The Long Rode on April 25th, 2013 by Wade

I did the first oil change after starting the engine rebuild.  Let me preface this with a bit of a description of the oil bing used in this process.  Valvoline VR1 60 wt. oil has the color of extra virgin olive oil and the consistency refrigerated Miss Butter worth with corn syrup added.  Like every thing 90 percent of whats going to happen happens in the first 10 percent of the activity.  With that in mind doing an oil change in the first 20-50 miles of brake in is about right.  Anyway I changed the oil and the oil was no longer green.  It was slate gray.  And I don’t know what the point of having an oil filter on this bike when during the oil change I had to stuff a rag into the oil tank, after flushing it with mineral spirits, to whip out the grit that didn’t rince out.

The other thing that needed to be done at 50 miles was to go back over all the jug nuts (he he) and retorque them just to be sure enugh all 18 torqued back down.  So thats a good thing.  Worst part of the retorting was having to take out the circuit braker to get the front right base nut.  I was told that that one is often skipped because it’s hard to reach and it is also the first spot to blow a gasket.  Now I have to re time the engine but I guess thats a small price to pay.

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Wow

Posted in Cosmetics, Engine, The Long Rode on April 22nd, 2013 by Wade

Lets we last time I wrote I was getting the charging system back in line. Last Tuesday the 16th the new regulator arrived. I hooked every thing back up and and fired up the engine. Once again Marlin fired right up and that made me happy. So I went out for a ride and something just wasn’t right. there was no power and after a few miles there were some strage sounds. Like slapping or cracking coming from the engine. This didn’t make me happy. Today I went riding again looking for some 60 wt. oil to make the first oil change and get rid of the brake in sluff. Of course I couldn’t find any, all that around is 50 wt. So after getting home and letting things cool off for a few hours I went out after dinner and adusted the pushrods, I was hoping it was a valve problem causing the noises I was hearing from the engine. Low and behold the rear intake push rod had collapsed. So that explained a lot. This made me happy. I was pretty sure I had found the problem. After getting things buttoned back down I went out for another ride and this time I was happy. Now I Marlin is just swimming in power and torque. But now I have a new fear. Because Marlin has way more go then he has stop.

From now on out its all cake. I still need to get the right spot light to stop moving round during driving and figure out bag rale screws so there firm and they stop falling out.

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Power

Posted in Engine, repair, The Long Rode on April 9th, 2013 by Wade

Sunday at noon was 24 hrs since Billy put the new insert in the front head.  It was time to try it out.  Yet again I got nothing but cranking when pushing the starter button.  Despite my exceptional levels of disappointment I didn’t know what else to do.  But I did go to O’Riles and get a new condenser, I was going to get points too but we couldn’t find anything that was comprable to what came on 68.  It turnes out that the 69 Nova points that are the same as a shovelhead’s points are for a cone head shovel.  Because of that I redressed the old points with a file and put it all back together.  I also decided to recheck the timing.  Somehow the circuit braker lobe was 180 off again.  I fixed that and got ready to push the button.  Low and behold the engine cranked and BOOM “POTATO POTATO POTATO”  It was magical!!!

The next problem I faces was the engine was still racing.  There was nothing left to check but the carb throttle butterfly.  After another call to Hawg, mostly to tell him the good news.  He suggested that I pull the card and reset the butterfly.  This is done by loosening the mounting screws on the back of the butter fly then snapping the throttle a couple of times.  This assures that the butterfly seals completely when closed.  After getting everything back together I pushed the button and adjusted the idel screw until the engine idled.  The weird thing is that when I started the tare down of Marlin I took the carb off, put it on the shelf, then put it back on the engine.  The theory is that the idel was so whacked because the engine was in such bad condition it was lugging to the point that it was a nice idel.  Now with a smooth working engine the carb had to be set correctly.   Thats were the fun ended.

I took Marlin out for a spin to start the brake in and only got about six miles into it when the battery went out.  Fortunately I noticed the lights going dime and the gen light never went out so I knew it was coming and headed home before it died.  Today I took the generator and regulator to  shop to get it tested and sure enough the regulator was dead.  After I got it home I took it home and could see the burnt contacts.  So now again Marlin is sitting waiting for parts.

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Oops

Posted in Engine, repair, The Long Rode on April 6th, 2013 by Wade

Ok so I may have spoken to soon.  Then next day I tried to start Marlin again and again nothing.  This time Hawg was kind enough to give me an ignition coil to swap out to hopefully get a better spark.  I wired up the new coil and got zilch as far as sparks go.  Both on a spark plug grounded to the head as well as a prob gaped off the head.  I put the old coil back on and tested again with the back plug and was back to week yellow sparks.  Next I pulled the front plug out and this time the new thread insert I just installed pulled out along with the plug.  So instead of riding Marlin I was pulling every thing off to take the front head off.  This time I took it to Billy’s and this morning he was able to put in a 2x oversize plug insert.  I also got a new coil.  Every thing was buttoned back up and screwed down tight be 2pm today.  I still have to weight for the insert to finish curing but I have high hopes.  Because with the new coil I am now getting a spark on the plug that is audible.  That’s good.

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SUCCESS!

Posted in Engine, The Long Rode on April 4th, 2013 by Wade

Finally Marlin started and idled.  It wasn’t stedy but it was an idle.  There is a story that goes along with this milestone.  It started on Tuesday when I was fussing again trying to get it started.  Basically when I was trying to put the front spark plug back in it was not right.  Apon cheking the plug it had striped out.  I tried another plug and this time not only did it strip the plug but it pulled out the coil insert in the spark plug hole.  Yesterday I put in a spark plug hole repair plug.  This ment I had to weight 24 hours for it to finish curing.  Witch brings us to today.  Today consisted of replacing the plug wires with Accell  due it yourself wires.  This time when I tred to start him up I used the car battery as a booster for power.  Well it still didnt fire but it was defently was trying to start.  After talking with Hawg he suggessted droping the gap to .020, the minimum gap for the plugs.  So I did.  I also cleaned and dressed the plugs because they were carbon fouled.  Then it happened.  I wasn’t realy expecting it but when I pussed the button there was some defenit chuging and a couple of cranks later off it went.  Nice and loud.

I know there are lots of miss spellings but for some reason the red squiggles disappeared. so sorry.

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Almost There

Posted in Engine, The Long Rode on March 31st, 2013 by Wade

When I left you I had tried to turn over Marlin with marginal success.  So I call Hawg to ask him what his thoughts were.  Well he said “hell I’ll just come down and well get it timed up and running.”  So Friday Hawg came down.  First thing we discovered is that I had timed it to the wrong mark.  On the new flywheel there are three marks on the fly wheel  ( . | . )  I, not thinking about it nor checking the timing marks while the engine was on the bench, just timed it to the | because that is what the manuals say.  So I had the bike timed to the advanced mark rather then then TDC mark.  Then turning to the circuit braker it turnes out that the cam was backwards.  So rather then the front piston firing on the front points opening it was firing on the back point.

Once we got that all straightened out it seamed that battery just didn’t have the oomph to get the job done.  Then it happened.  The starter just started to wheer.  It appeared that the starter gear clutch had gone out.  I confirmed this by pulling the primary cover tonight and yes indeed the starter drive gear ingages the ring gear on the clutch basket but there is no turning happening.  Hopefully a new gear and we’ll try again.  Fingers crossed that Marlin will fire up with timing straightened out and a new starter gear clutch.

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Gas and Oil

Posted in Cosmetics, Engine, repair, The Long Rode on March 26th, 2013 by Wade

Between yesterday and today I finished every thing up

  • tightened all engin bolts
  • mufflers
  • carburetor
  • tanks
  • seat
  • battery
  • bag rails
  • floor boards
  • tranny bolts
  • installed the generator
  • cleaned oil filter holder
  • installed circuit braker

The things I have left to do are the following.

  • static time the engine
  • add oil
  • add gas
  • start it up.

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Gears

Posted in Engine, repair, The Long Rode on March 15th, 2013 by Wade

Today I received the gaskets for the oil pump. So I put it together   Problem is that yesterday I ran all over looking for woodruff keys (#207) and locking rings.  See when I ordered the gasket kit I thought it was just the gaskets.  I ended up having to get the woodruff keys from the local HD shop for $3 apice, McMaster-Carr sells them for $0.23 apice in quantities of 50.   This morning I went and got the keys.  Then in the mail was my gasket kit.  Luckily the kit was a full rebuild kit with two keys and the locking ring in it.  So tomorrow I get to return the keys and the locking ring.  Whoot.

Breather gear goes in the hole on the left side of the, nice new gray, gear on top.

With the oil pump rebuilt and installed I started on the gear case.  This is where I ran into a new problem.  I got all the gears set in place and the only one left was the breather gear.  When I looked inside the breather I could see some caked on gunk.  A couple of large pieces of lead came out wich made me think it was caked with lead.  This started the process of trying to clean the breather.  Since the stupid things coast $120 I figured this was the way to go.

 
If you look close at the second picture you can see the hols at the bottom of the breather are clogged.  So I tried to take it appart.  I was able to pry off the retaining clip seen in the first pic.  But I could not get the screen out to clean it.  I finally decided to chisel it out and grab it with a pair of pliers.  This worked and would have been easy to reshape to fit back into the breather.  But of course it would not be that easy.  Once I got the screen out it was not only caked it was fused.  I think it had rusted out inside the breather and got caked with lead.  A pice about the diameter of a penny broke off the screen.  So tomorrow I get to try and find some perforated sheet metal that will replace the breather screen along with a way of securing it in the breather.

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Pistons!

Posted in Engine, repair, The Long Rode on March 13th, 2013 by Wade

Billy called yesterday and said it was all done.  So of course I ran straight up there to pick it up.  Sure enough there it was just a bunch of pieces in boxes.  After a severe lightning of my pocket book I was off back home with a “new” engine in the trunk.  This is how it looked when I got put it in the garage.

There is how it sat until today.  Today I started assembly and that involved attaching the pistons and cylinders to the case.  All went smoothly.  The rings gaped out to 0.019 the specs call for 0.010-0.020.  So everything is good to go.  I did have to clean off some of the machining debis from from the top of the cylinder and there was a pice of flash on the oil port of the front “sleeved” cylinder.  It seems to me that that was something that should have been taken care of.  All in all no biggie.  A little brake cleaner, compressed air, and a fresh sheen of oil and all was good.

Now my dilemma is what to do next.  The engine weighs a ton and I debating weather to but the gear box together on the bench or put in the frame and then put the gear box together

 

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Done sort of

Posted in Engine, The Long Rode on March 8th, 2013 by Wade

I just called Billy’s  and asked about the status of the engine rebuild.  Apparently its been done for about 4 weeks.  Problem is the rocker arm shaft ends have been back ordered for 4 weeks.  So hopefully the bolts will be in this next week and I can pick it up.  Apparently nobody orders the natural finish straight slot bolt ends.

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