Turns out what I thought was just an overfilled fuel tank appears to be a leak in the left tank. I’m going to have to pull the tanks off and pressure test them to try and find the hole. Hopefully its just a small hole and wont take much to repair.
Today I went out and got a good fuel filter. Got home put it on and and went for a ride. Mostly I went to fill up the tank with some Gas. But in the mean time I thought I would actually log a few miles and I did. I went about 7.2 miles just in the neighborhood mostly cause I wanted to stay out of traffic. Marlin ran relay well and started with very little trouble. There Is a front end shimmy between 30 and 55 mph but it cruses nicely at 60. I hope the brakes just need to be de-glazed otherwise stopping will always be exiting and most travailing will be done in the Right lane. 🙁
New problems noted.
front end shimmy
tanks easy to over fill
Brakes are week
and tripometer does not work (yesterday went from 110-112 today stayed at 112).
I also started to polish the aluminum today. It is sure going to take some elbow grease to get it shiny.
This has been a great weekend so far. We had our first Football game of the season last night and it was a good night. CO was the underdog to a very good Yuba City JV team. But in the end our Wolves prevailed 21-14. Then the varsity one a squeaker 22-21 by stopping a 2 point conversion with 1 min left in the game. Now for the best part.
Grandpa, Rat, n New Kid
Steve “Hawg” and Bill from Australia (no it was not a special visit from Aus. he was already here) came down from same said Yuba to check out Marlin and help diagnose the bikes stalling issues. They had come to the same conclusion I had. It was probably the crapy secondary fuel filter. So we took the fuel filter out and opened up both the primary and reserve fuel valves on the petcock. As an aside Hawg said the replica petcock was probably going to be another chocking point for the fuel delivery. But with both valves open it worked fine around the block, we’ll see how it works on the highway. Hawg also went all around the jugs and tightened all the nuts. Then we took some rides. With Bill being an Ausi. we thought it would be great to get some pix of him on a clasic American machine.
Hawg and Bill on Marlin
So I got some great news. First off I am subscribed to Hawg Ryder’s tech formum. The other day I posted a question on a good local’ish shop to get the engine of Marlin checked out and fixed. As expected I got the name of Bill’s MC. Now I’m looking forward to visiting this place. Now for the more then expected response. Hawg is going to come down and take a look at Marlin and go over it with me for a complete diagnosis. Then depending on what needs to be done he will help me here in my garage or we can take it up to his garage and fix’er up. I’m so happy I’m almost giggly.
In case you didn’t know I have three motor cycles. a 1995 Honda Nighthawk 750 (Gill), a 2001 Suzuki GZ250 (Dori), and a 1968 Harley Davidson Electra glide (Marlin). With all of the brake excitement I decided to redo the front brakes on the other two bikes just to be on the safe side, seeing as how Ive never changed the fluid on ether of them. While its true that I never changed the fluid on ether bike Dori has had its brake fluid replaced. You see, the bike got blown over in a wind storm several years ago and the fall knocked loose the banjo on the master cylinder. The resulting fluid leak is why that bike is now blue rather than factory forest green. Ever since then the brake has been rather spongy and never really felt right. So as I said I took this opportunity to redo all the brakes. Gills brakes were quick and easy and now feel as good as ever. Dori’s brakes are now much firmer.
Last night after getting back from a CPR class I set to putting the back end back together on Marlin. I started with honing out the brake cylinder. That went very well and the bore was as smooth and shiny as freshly honed cylinder. Being that is been 100ohere I was sweating buckets but was was able to get every thing reassembled.
Reassembled brakes with rebuilt cylinder
I have to say though that the shoe springs on those brakes are crazy stiff. It was quite a challenge to get them on. I also bled out the brakes and put the tire back on to the hub. Every thing seemed to be working just fine but then I noticed that brake fluid kept leaking out. Well this was obviously no good. After I found the bras gasket that had fallen down behind the hub mount and got it put back on the banjo the leak stopped. Excellent. Now the brakes work and the brake lights works.
Felt good to get my hands dirty again. I started tonight with putting the rear brake master cylinder back on the bike. This included the right side foot board and the associated hardware. Once I got the the cylinder back on I put the rear piston back on the brake line. This was all in an effort to find out how badly corroded the rear piston was. So I got everything hooked back up and filled the reservoir with DOT 5 as per the MC instructions. Then I started to pump the brakes. Of course only one side of the rear piston blew out but that was a start. This time I actually thought ahead and I put the piston in a milk jug to catch the brake fluid. So no muss no fuss. Now here I am with a piston with only one side out and a jammed up opposite side. I was finely able to get the stuck piston out with the aid of a C-clamp and a hammer handle. Now for the good news. The rust that was on the rear piston was superficial external rust and return spring rust. The bore of the piston is still good, YEAH. Now all I need is a rebuild kit and all should be good with the rear brakes. Oh yeah I flushed almost a full reservoirs worth of fluid thought the brake lines and it all came out as clean as when it went in.
After
Before
Next I replaced the ethnically engineered seat front mount bracket. I replaced it with an OEM type Y shaped bracket with the correct shape and dimensions. This made a huge difference in the ride posture and fit of the seat not to mention made the whole idea of the tilt seat mount possible again. Now once I started to think about it the engineered seat bracket had the distinct odor of something my grandfather might have done. But I think I will continue to blame the shop that reassembled the bike for my uncle.
Now for the bad news. I checked the piston pressure on the rear jug again. this time I put a squirt of gear oil in the cylinder and low and behold the pressure jumped almost immediately from 90 psi to 110 psi. the from cylinder remained at 120psi. So according to all the websites this means there is some serious problems with that rear cylinder.
With that news I’ve come to another financial halt on the bike repair. I can go ahead and finish up the brake system but the engine is a big problem. I do of course want the engine to be running at it’s optimum but a ring job is far beyond my capability.
I figured something out the other day. I figured out how to get the rear tire off the ground without a lift jack. It involves scissor jacks, car ramps and two people. So there wont be any pictures.
The good news about this is that I was able to get the timing set statically, thanks to Hawgrider and his instructions. The engine sounds like it is running a little smoother but I was still not able to see any timing marks when using the timing light. So the next thing on the agenda is to take the rear brakes apart and get to work on the cylinders. I’m being held back with the brake work because I can’t find a 7/16th allen wrench. I went to three different stores trying to find one. I ended up borrowing one from the same person I got a Helicoil from to fix a mounting hole on the head light cowl.
Third thing I’ve done was to get a compression gauge and test the cylinders. It is recommended to do the compression test when the engine is hot but with it up on the jack and me just wanting to try it out. I tested it cold. Regardless of the temp the front cylinder checked out at 120 psi as suggested in the manual. The rear cylinder, however, only registered at 90 psi. So there is differently something wrong with that rear cylinder.
This is a post mainly of dualities.
Good. I got some new bolts, nuts, dies, and taps in an effort to clean up the carburetor and air filter mounting plates. Now the screw threads are clean the air filter is on with all of the bolts its supposed to have, and the carburetor is supported with the support strut.
Bad. Now I cant choke the carb with my hand in order to for it to draw that first squirt of gas. So far I haven’t been able to start it with the air filter on.
Good. I’ve ridden the bike three times now. Not more then a 1/4 mile at a time.
Bad. The bike stalls almost immediately upon shifting into third gear.
Good. I was able to use the timing gun and the timing hole plug in order to attempt to set the timing of the bike.
Bad. With no tach I can’t determine what the RPM is of the engine for proper timing. Besides even with the timing bolt window installed nether my brother nor I were able to even see the timing marks. So maybe this means the timing is exactly 180o off or were idiots.
Good. The front spark plug is carbon fouling. Probably (hopefully) do to the timing being off.
Bad. The rear plug is oil fouling. Probably do to bad rings. There in lies the limits of the wrenching I’m willing to do on my own.
So most of the good and bad is manageable and I think easily over come. But tearing the engine apart in order to fix the rings/bore/heads etc. is beyond my scope. So as the post says I’ve hit a road block and will start looking for somewhere to get a 68 shovel head rebuilt.
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