Now that I'm unemployed once again (at last! :roll:) I have been thinking a lot about doing this. I've also found myself playing an unhealthy amount of Fallout 3 this week (around 7 hours a day!) so thought I should go outside for a bit before the cold really takes hold, so it begins..
I have chosen to start with the engine the bike originally had, as a ruined top end will hopefully be easier to rectify than a ruined bottom end. This one appears to have suffered oil starvation up top, not sure why, could be a previous moron owner ran it out of oil or the oilway got blocked. Either way I figure it's easier than getting a crank reground and tracking down a conrod, but it depends what state the rest of it is in.
There's a whole lot of scoring going on, particularly at the inlet side (the side furthest away). It appears as though camshaft bearing on the left inlet side has actually spun, so the lack of oil has happened at fair revs I reckon. I also know someone has been in here before as the cam holders have been swapped around in either a vain attempt to stop the tapping or by a moron owner/mechanic who couldn't remember where stuff went. The shafts that run along the top and bottom with the rockers on them are also each missing a pair of wave washers, clearly someone thought they were unnecessary.
Yet more evidence of butchery. The caps in the middle are difficult to get out, I'll admit, but I managed with an ancient looking pair of pliary things that look more like they should be chomping through cables. Oddly, they have a rubber O ring and the passage leads to the outside world somehow, the inside actually containing some spider web. I have no idea how that works.
See anything not quite right? A gold star to you if you noticed! Quite why one bearing gets a circlip and the other doesn't is a mystery, maybe the person who was working on this had a lot of holes in their bench? :?
And the gory pictures - if you are of a mechanically sympathetic disposition look away now!
This is the holder for the camshaft bearing on the inlet cam nearest the camchain.. Ouch.
And this is that bearing and lobe. Pretty snazzy, eh? The rest aren't quite as bad as this, but none of it is in any way usable. The rockers have also faired badly, a couple completely the wrong shape being dished instead of domed. I just hope all that swarf floating around hasn't knackered up the crank or conrod too much - the rest can be replaced but these bits, as far as I know, cannot be found. There is a chance the XR350 conrod would fit since it is the same stroke, but I don't know for sure.
Tomorrow will hopefully be the day the head comes off, weather and bolts permitting 8)
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