This past Friday I worked on the bike for the better part of the day. It was incredibly humid out (it felt like I was working in a rainforest) but I did as much as I could.
I removed all 22 of the nuts and bolts holding the cylinder head on and finally removed it. the block came off fairly easily but the pistons were stuck in there pretty good. A little wiggling and they were free. I then removed the pistons and removed the oil rings.
Looking back now this was a waste of my time as you will see in a little bit.
Next, I cleaned up the block as best I could. I sprayed it with engine cleaner, let it sit for 10 minutes and then sprayed it down with the hose. I then scraped and sanded off what was left of the gasket.
I knew that the cylinders would need to be either honed or bored and judging by the amount of rust and some advice from people with more knowledge than I, boring seemed to be the only way to go. Finding a shop to bore out a block is more difficult then it seems. Long story short, it happens that Allison's grandfather used to work for a place that does this sort of work and he decided to share this information with me yesterday. Sometimes things have a way of working out, don't they? Head and Block hopefully will call today and let me know how much they had to bore out the cylinders. I can then order the appropriate over-sized pistons (hence why my previous work was a waste of time) and some other parts that I need to put the engine back together.
Oh. I also started reassembling the carb assembly and removed, disassembled and started cleaning the forth carb (I left this until the end so I remembered how the other three were to be assembled). I'll also need to order some new fuel line tubing as they are starting to get quite fragile after 30+ years.
Here is a picture of the engine and the cylinder head which I'll need to clean the crap out of.
