So off with that fairing then...
Pleasant surprise finding the original headlight behind there. It's dirty, but the chrome is good and should clean up well. The bike came with the original headlight bracket and indicator ears, plus a spare tank, side panels, tail piece, pillion brackets and pegs, and a set of Marzochi (probly spelt that wrong) shocks. All that's missing I think is the front indicators. I'm not sure which way to go with it yet, back to standard or 'special'.
By the way, don't assume a fairing keeps the engine clean...
I've seen less cr*p in a cow field...
It took a week of heat, WD40, paraffin, more heat, grinding, blood, sweat and swearing to get the plug out after it sheared off in the head. Then one evening, as I was about to get the big drill out in exasperation, as if by magic it became almost finger-tight and came out cleanly. Old engines eh? Don't you love 'em!
Rocker cover off and things are looking up...
Surprisingly clean for a 54K bike. Methinks someone's been here before! The piston is good, the bore has some - very - light scoring and everything is within limits so far. The valves cleaned up well and again no excessive wear in the guides or rocker shafts. Some wear on the rockers themselves, but I've seen a lot worse.
Not that I'm suggesting this bike has been carefully maintained though - here's a peach - electrical engineering at it's finest!
Took me a while to sort that one out. There was just enough left on the wires to strip back and solder some new ones on. I'm attending to each issue as I find it, so hopefully it'll be easier putting it all back together. I've spent a lot of hours cleaning and polishing but it's all a good excuse for getting out of the way of the chaos sometimes romantically referred to as family life!
All was going well until I parted the cases. I intended to replace all the bearings as a matter of course, but the gearbox came as a bit of a surprise...
Ok, you can take a breather now. It's full stop until I can either find a decent gearbox to rob (doesn't matter if 5th is shagged, mine's actually quite good!), or buy the gears new. Steve, what final drive gearing would you suggest if I fitted a 400 gearbox, and are the sprockets readily available?
One further option that has crept into my head - the bike and all the spares that came with it stands me in at £750. If I could recoup that by selling as is, ie a rolling chassis and the engine in bits (all clean and shiny bits though!) I might well be tempted to pass it on...
