Here goes after another long break in posting what little progress has been made, not made any easier by my camera acquiring a bad case of 'young daughter syndrome' -
( You know
the thing; 'Dad, did
the lens always flop about like this?').
Well, first off, once I'd cleaned up my super cheap Comstars which came up looking almost like new I decided that
the discs needed some nice new holes to go along with
the other brake mods.
Solid six hours marking out and drilling!
Them divils is tuff stuff
So
the chassis is almost finished now, just waiting for a 79 speed drive to arrive so
the front wheel can go in.
The rear end is finished.
New saddle, new Hagons, New BT45s, new grab rail, Bill's great paint job!
It's getting there.
Time to start on the engine 
I know a lot of you will think that's doing things ass-backwards to do
the chassis first but my thinking was that engine parts were more likely to be available than anything else.
Well, I guess I knew what I was in for with
the original 76 motor just by
the state of
the rest of
the bike.
Pulled
the screen first. Loads of muck plus bits of seal and O ring.
Pulled
the clutch. Thats
the chewed clutch nut you see there!
The belled washer was totally missing!
The clutch centre has had
the stops that locate
the tabbed washer broken off.
The shock absorber plate had its stupid brass rivets sheared so that
the spring steel strips had come out and damaged
the clutch basket.
Brass rivets holding spring steel!!! What
the hell kind of engineering is that?
The neutral switch that I knew was bad was solidly seized into
the case. Nothing would move it. ( I eventually got it out once I had split
the cases and removed
the gear train, by hammering it out. Yup, it was that solid!)
Split
the cases. As I pulled
the left side off bits of piston ring fell out of number two piston
Number four piston has marks on
the skirt where someone has let it drop onto
the gear train previously!
Stator wires where they come through
the case had
the insulation damaged on all three. PO had simply squirted silicon sealer around them
. Unbelievable!!!
Primary chain totally done in.
The two top engine mountings where
the shroud goes are toast.
But, joy of joys,
the crankshaft seems to be OK apart from some condensation staining on
the flywheel.
Oh yeah,
the heads. Left side 371 cam, right side 431 cam; 371 auto advance with buggered springs.
The carbs incidently were '75 755As jetted as for a '79
How
the hell did this thing ever manage to run.
The plan was to fit
the other 79 engine I have with
the 76 crank, refurb
the heads as per 75-76 ( got new cam on
the way) and completely rebuild it.
The carbs have been totally overhauled and rejetted.
But I think now in view of
the length of time it's taking I'll just do
the heads, redo
the 79 crank timing marks, change
the belts and anything else obvious and stick it in to get some mileage out of it for this summer.
I can get a set of cases and take
the time to do a proper rebuild of
the 76 that way.
(kind of in-joke)
