Showing posts with label motorcycle shop stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motorcycle shop stories. Show all posts

Sunday, September 17, 2023

The Motorcycle Diaries (maintenance and repair)

 Last October I rode the 92 Fatboy to Wenatchee, about a 450 mile round trip. One day.  A bit of a hammer but not too bad.  Got back and discovered that the front base gasket had blown, however.  Since I have other bikes it sat til now.

Finally time and enthusiasm.  Got it all apart and decided that the heads and cylinder needed repainting.  So did that and put them on.  

Then decided that since I had a brand new S&S oil pump that I got for free with a couple bins of stuff I should put that on, plus the cam cover and pushrod covers had some flaking chrome/rust respectively, those should be replaced as well.  Of course those required ordering parts.


Scored brand new Harley parts still in the original packaging for both and on they went yesterday.


Did have an S&S steel breather that I'd bought some time ago so that went in too.  I carefully marked the timing but then realized I'd put on a new cam cover.  So much for my careful marking but I think I was able to get it pretty close by just staring at the old cover.  I'll probably retime but I do that by feel, not with a timing light.

Still to go, rockers, exhaust (front pipe brackets both broken so I have to manufacture something), tanks back on.  I don't think there's anything else I need to do so hopefully it'll be back together today.


Wednesday, November 25, 2015

CBR project: head rebuild

Never rebuilt a Honda head before and probably didn't really need to do this one, but the bike had a stumble and I thought it might be a bent valve.  Pulled the head off, found a relatively inexpensive source for valve seals ($11 each from Honday, $4 each from the local indie shop; did I mention that there are 16 of them so I save about $110 buck right there), and ordered a valve spring compressor that would work on 23mm valves (a bit smaller than Harley).

Super easy, pulled each one out, lapped it with some valve grinding compound, cleaned the whole thing thoroughly, and then put it back together.  Took a while because there are so many but no snags and no bent valves.








Next step, install new base gasket, reinstall head, then pull carbs off parts bike and start cleaning and tuning them for install.