Got the pressure plate. Just as sexy as I had hoped. Damn.
Anyway, I degreased the timing side case half with diesel while I baked the other half in the oven. The service manual recommends “paraffin [kerosene]”. Anybody looked for kero lately? I couldn’t find any, so after about 30 minutes I settled for diesel. Felt kinda badass degreasing an engine in diesel anyway. Turned out pretty okay. In the first picture, you can see the drift I whittled up real quick for removing the cam bushings. I’ll make solid drifts and use a shop press upon reassembly.
I need to make a few more drifts to get at the bearings in this one, but I’m thinking about heading back over this evening and doing that as well as cleaning/degreasing the primary side case half. Then I can blast everything before shipping to Nils to save on his labor. We’ll see. Didn’t get a change to box that chrome shit up. Maybe tonight. Try to take it over on Friday.
Right? I’m pretty stoked to see what everything will look like vapor blasted. The cleaner I can get everything here, the easier [cheaper] Nils’ job is.
Looks like my 7/8"-9 UNC tap is going to get delivered today too, so I can remove all of the bushings. Oh, happy day. Should have everything ready to blast next time.
Generally I agree. Though I prefer well applied to chrome to polished aluminum, though. Polished aluminum scratches just by looking at it, corrodes (unless you seal it and that degrades the finish a bit), and just doesn’t have the same shine that chrome does. Once chrome starts failing though it’s garbage, and if it does get damaged there isn’t much you can do to fix it.
Also, I don’t know where you are located, but there are several places with kero. I stopped using deisel in my heater because it fuckin reeks.
Oh, sure. If you want a uniform, shiny finish; chrome plating is hard to beat on aluminum. That’s just usually not my bag. More of a satin guy. Ideally, I want these covers to be vapor blasted with the rest of the engine, but I’m not really sure what the reverse plating process will leave me on these covers. As long as I can carefully blast them back down to somewhat smooth, bare aluminum; it should work. If not, I suppose I could powdercoat them black or something. Not what I want, but anything is better than pitted, peeling chrome. They’re just covers, too. I can always pull them and replace them if I find a more suitable finishing method.
I was searching for kero in/near Hamburg. I tried to Google for it and I was lead to three places without it. I didn’t care to waste any more time, so I bought diesel. Served my purpose well enough. I’m not super concerned with odor as I’m not burning it. Besides, is it crazy if I find the smell of unburnt diesel almost pleasant?
The stripping should not damage the underlying metal.
Have you thought about removing some of the casting marks from the motor cases? Not going crazy and rounding off everything, but just getting rid of those parting lines.
It would be a cool detail that most people probably cant do because they rarely strip their motor down this far.
That’s good to hear about the stripping. I didn’t actually suspect I’d have anything to worry about, I just concern myself with everything.
Honestly, no; I hadn’t thought about shaving casting lines. I usually miss little details like that. That’s a great idea, though. Wouldn’t take a huge amount more work either, as I’ve already got everything torn down and squeaky clean. I’ve been meaning to get a little 3/8" belt air sander. Would be pretty perfect for that.
I finished heating the cases and knocking out all of the bearings and bushings. Both engine half castings are completely bare along with the gearbox inner cover. I broke the head down by removing the intake studs/carb spacers and valves/springs. Guides were definitely replaced by Kilspie. They look brand new and are actually tight, according to my .3115"-.0002" Go/NoGo gauge. New valves recommend .3115 clearance, so I can hone them a tiny bit to get them perfect. Sweet.
Then I decided to break down the rocker boxes. Holy shit. Look at these garbage rocker shafts. Two out of four oil holes were clogged and they’re oil coked and pitted like fuck.
I don’t believe anybody has ever taken those down this far. They needed it.
Hoping to head back tomorrow and continue degreasing the parts to be vapor blasted. That list continues to grow. I’d also like to collect all of the chrome parts to be reverse plated and put them in a box to be dropped off this week. Of course I haven’t gotten to that yet.
Oh, and check these tappet block o-rings. These are pretty good, too.
At this point, I think Kit took the motor apart just so he could carve his fucking name inside of it. I mean, he did clean the sludge trap; but that’s literally it. He replaced nothing and he certainly didn’t do a full teardown. Why even bother?
I think I’ll head over in a bit and work on it. Day off today.
Finally boxed up all of the chrome junk to be stripped. How clean does that stuff have to be? I would guess they clean everything before processing so they can be sure it’s really clean. Yes? No?
Anyway, as soon as that stuff is bare I’ll blast it everything and ship it all to Nils. I’m thinking I should be able to get everything clean enough on my own that Nils’ labor should be vapor blasting only. At least that’s my hope.
I worked on the frame today. Mainly, I pulled the kick and center stands, the horn and the in-frame oil filter/cover. Both stands are bent.
I straightened the center stand with a piece of DOM tubing with the end flattened enough so that it slipped over the stand’s arm. Using a piece of drill rod, verified that I had the aligned the bolt holes. Works much better now. Need to strip and powdercoat it.
Next time I go over there, I should be able to pretty much finish the frame, minus the upper shock mount and seat mounts. The new swingarm uses a 20mm pivot bolt, so the original tiny pivot holes have to get blown out. I’m going to make some cups on the lathe which will go into the end on each side of the drilled-out pivot housing. These cups will not only provide a home for 20mm needle bearings, but they’ll also spread the bearings apart a bit, allowing the frame to better support the ‘wider-than-factory’ Ducati swingarm. Less radial force on the bearings as the effective lever length is reduced. Anyway, that’s next time. Have to get some real big drill bits for that.
Whole shitload of parts showed up. More coming tomorrow. Package from the UK with the outer gearbox mainshaft bearing, the other set of lifters, rod bearings, and a few small hardware pieces and seals.
Don’t need much more than rods, pistons/rings, cams and a few more pieces of hardware to do a pretty much complete rebuild. Gonna spice it up a bit while I’m in there.
Actually, yea. That pretty much is the look I’m after. Those all for the Knuckle? The vapor blasted aluminum has that dull shine that I really like. It kind of looks like a chunk of fresh, clean aluminum at the same time it’s vintage-y and patina’d due the the satin. I promise I’m not a hipster.
Anyway, if you don’t mind me asking, who did that plating; Tripp? Is that just straight electroless Nickel? That’s definitely something I would consider for the covers/smaller parts as an alternative to vapor blasting. Frankly, that looks good enough that I would consider having everything plated like that just for convenience. I worry about plating, but theoretically as long as it’s applied well and it’s cared for; it really shouldn’t be a problem. At least not before the motor has to get torn down and rebuilt again.
This dude allows people to blast their shit on his equipment for $15/hr. Too bad I don’t live anywhere near Oregon.
The very first thing Richard said to me after he got off his Norton when he stopped by the shop last summer was “fuck cars.” Hah.
Thanks, man. Me too. I didn’t really plan on throwing two grand plus at the motor alone, but fuck it; why not? That’s what you get when you buy your girlfriend’s dad’s bike that he and a buddy tore apart. The evidence is there. It needed to be fully rebuilt by somebody that can use tools.
Tax return should cover my wheelset and rear shock at least, so I should be able to fully mock and finish the chassis. Really want to have this done by the time the weather breaks, so I can get back to work on that little plastic racecar and have that done early-mid summer.
They’re in Batavia. Electroless Nickel will bring out any scratch in the part, so I would personally have the parts vapor blasted for consistent surface finish THEN plated. The plating will prevent the parts from dulling over time, and it goes on so thing you don’t need to worry much about the press fits on parts.
I went over for a few hours today. I chose to work on the steering stabilizer. It came with the fork, which is from a 2008 Gixxer 1000. Decent little KYB unit. But it’s got an electronic solenoid that plugs a passage in the stabilizer body to limit fluid movement when it’s hit with 12V, no doubt triggered by the factory ECU at a certain vehicle speed to allow more dampening at high[er] speeds. Or, it did. I fired up the lathe and whittled up a solid replacement in the extended setting.
I’ll finish this up tomorrow. Not sure what else I’ll work on. Whatever calls my name, I suppose.
You must know somebody. I just took a few large parts and several small ones over there today and was quoted $250 and two weeks. Better be fucking CLEEEAN for that price.
