Engine re-assembley

So, yesterday evening I got the crankcase upper back on and also the cylinders. A couple of tips for the future. I used one of Libby's (old) paint brushes to apply the very fluid gasket cement on the crankcase lower - this worked really well - much cleaner than the last time I did it on the upper. Although must be sure to wipe away any traces of oil otherwise it doesn't stick well.

Before putting the crankcase on, I set about trying to remember which bolts went where on the crankcase :-

It took me some time, as I hadn't taken a photo coz I thought I knew it !

I thought I would make a readable picture to print out for the next time

 

Torqued up everything as per manual, and then set about the pistons and cylinders. The pistons had a bit of carbon build up which I tried scraping off, but seemed to be doing more damage with the scraping than leaving the carbon - so it got left! Pistons 3 and 4 show small signs of detonation, but I consider OK for the moment, I didn't fit new rings as they all seemed good!

The cylinders all went on without too much hassle, but again lack of photos slowed me down.

You need to fit the exhaust valve on cylinder 2 before fitting the cylinder - it is impossible afterwards, so I thought I would quickly identify which exhaust valve went where.... doh... The valve cables are number 1-4, which for a moment I confused with cylinder numbering..... After some thought and a lot of looking around in the manul etc. I found the following to be true :-

The cables 1 & 2 are the short ones and connect to cylinder 4
The cables 3 & 4 are the long ones that connect to cylinder 2
The pulley with the stop on it goes on cylinder 4
You need to install the valve in cylinder 2 before installing the cylinder (or you have to move the engine to get it in).

The little ridges in the valves go on the piston side.

Plus the rear pulley should have the "stop" protrusion on it - part 16 on the below diagram :

And the cover of the rear pulley should have the small angle covering the "stop" protrusion.
To make things easy all the alignment marks on the pulleys and on the servo motor should be aligned, then you know all the valves are open and they should be setup like this.

Unfortunately I can not get further because my tuner didn't keep the little O'rings on the cylinder bolts, so I had to order more from Suzuki, I will get them at the end of the week along with the Carbon rotary valves, which have now been sent - thanks Jerome!

Jobs still to be done :-
1/. Fabricate another wedge
2/. Check carbon valve clearance and adjust with smaller gaskets as necessary (a big 0.2 mms clearance is necessary)

Off to a wedding tomorrow, more news next week.

Engine Work done

Went back to Nantes on Friday to pickup my crankcase and other bits. The guy seems to have done a pretty good job at opening the inlet ports they are all very smooth, and fit the inner disk covers nicely, he also cleaned up and mated the cylinders to the crankcase which was good - all round I am pretty pleased although it was more expensive than I had planned!

You can see in the photos the new rotary disk inners and outers (Maranello Engineering), which look great quality, but Franco couldn't get the carbon disks to my guy in time, so I came away without the carbon rotary disks which Jerome will send me after having cut them to keep the same valve timing as Mark Dent had originally tuned in on the steel ones.

I have to alter the wedge (I bought from Performance Fabrications) because firstly it no longer fits the bolt to bolt width of the new covers, but also the inlet port doesn't line up very well - I will try to make one on my milling machine !

So I now have to URGENTLY get everything together as I only have a few days working at it before our holiday in the UK, and then in the South of France for a few days, in order to be ready for track day time at Ledenon on the 10/11th August.

Made some bar ends

The daytona has always made my thumbs go to sleep with a slight vibration but as we are going to Italy I thought I would do something about it. On the forums they add fishing lead weights inside the clipons, but my bars are blocked at both ends so I thought I would buy some cheap heavy bar ends. Went to Triumphs to show them Libby's bike (the headlights are cracked again plus the rear LED light is only half working). They only real light aluminium ones, but the guy gave me some off another bike - real heavy, however I needed to turn down a step that wouldn't suit my bike, plus the screws were too big a diameter. Never mind, I milled off the step and turned down the screws and threaded to the smaller size - perfect when you've got the tools.

Moto Legend

Had a nice weekend up at Dijon Prenois spectating at the Moto Legend event. Only stayed Saturday afternoon, but they make you pay 24 Euros for the weekend all the same - what a rip off. It's a shame because it is a nice event but it will be the last time I go.

Nice RG 500 club stand with about 10 bikes, I think it's the most RG's I've seen in one place at one time.

We stayed in a friends lovely house in the Bourgogne region, and had some great wines! And guess what - we didn't even get wet!

Immortalised in Print!

Update on the RG

Well at least with all this horrible weather, it has given me plenty of time in the garage! It snowed again today - the 25th of May! If I had to miss a years racing then this was the one - I don't think any race weekend has been completely dry as yet!

So I got the milling machine working to finish off my ride height adjuster for the RG, I was a bit tentative at first, but it works fine, still can't suss out how to remove the mill chuck inserts that hold each tool, at the moment I wack 'em with a mallet - not very good as they fall on the machine somewhere, I am sure blunting themselves in the process - note to self, must look that up on google.

I have now fitted the adjuster so that's job done (no photo yet). The other big job I've decided to tackle is fitting the bigger carbs that I bought second hand - TM34's, to the RG. In order to do this you need to open up the crankcase so that the admission hole is as big as the carb, I didn't feel quite up to this, so I have found a specialist in France who could do the job. Classic Racing Motos is up near Nantes (North West France). So I drove up on Friday (8 hours), to drop off the top crank case plus the cylinders and heads, as well as the carbs. Jerome is a fireman, and in his spare time he tunes RG 500's, he has a stack of them in his garage, and he does all the work by hand, in fact with a dremel, he reckons about 3 days to clean up the 4 admission ports, plus he will match the cylinders to the crankcase, and generally clean up everything so it fits nicely - he is an interesting bloke, with loads of stories etc... He will also provide some Marenello rotary disk covers which are oversized, again this should help with opening up to make the best of having big carbs.

So the bike is all over the floor again! When I took it down, I was happily surprised at the wear level of the pistons, cylinders compared to the last few times I have had it a part, I will probably change the rings as I have them already, as it would seem silly not to. I don't know wether to remove the cranks as this will disturb the seals, as who knows what crap there is in the bottom of the crankcase... we'll see.

I had to modify the inlet manifolds as the only rotary disk covers he had in stock were 70mm between bolt holes, and to wait for others would be end of July so out with the hack saw... As you can see my big radiator was looking messay, so I  spent a couple of hours straightening the cooling fins with a pen knife, a good snowy weather occupation!

Rainy weekend

Pissing down again, so thought I would change the chain on the Ducati and while I'm at it its the only bike in the garage without fresh oil in the forks.

The chain for reference has 102 pins and is a 530 pitch,  fitted with a quick change link, so it took me about 5 mins to thread the new one onto the old one and pull it through. A quick fiddle with the link and then adjust it to the appropriate tension. The rear axle move in a good centimeter so the old one was really knackered. 

Changing the fork oil was not really any more difficult, although goodness knows what size the allen key is for the fork caps. I had to use a smaller size and stick some thin sheet metal in to build it out. They weren't too tight fortunately.  The Ducati forks have drain plugs! After propping the bike up under the engine with some wooden blocks,  I released the drain plugs and let out approx. 230 ccs of grubby 10 sae fork oil, which was replaced with some Motul racing fork oil. Difficult to measure the actual fork level with the forks off the ground, so I simply added back 230 in each leg. The Ducati forks are 38mm Marzocchis, but the fork springs look like they came from oversize watch springs or maybe from a biro, they are about 20mm max outside diameter and these ones were 462mms long. I searched far and wide on the internet and in the workshop manual, but  couldn't find the free length of the springs, anyway I think a good upgrade would be some racetech emulators or different springs, anyway job done! Libby helped screw up the caps while I pushed against the springs thank goodness for helping hands.

I am going to fit 34mm carbs to the RG so I will stripping the engine to send of the top engine case to get it machined to get full benefit from the carbs. I am also getting bigger diameter rotary disks fitted which will really help it breath. Due to the extra width of the carbs I will need to go back to a standard fairing, with a seperate belly pan and side panels. I have already bought replacement bits from Poly26. The quality is ok, but I will need to get them painted up, so in the next few weeks I will need to decide on a new (or not) colour scheme. Suggestions are welcome! I have already got the carbs - second hand so I took them apart to make sure they were clean and ready to use. They are fitted with 240 mains and 25 pilots, probably a good starting point.They look new inside, but I will need to think about if I can use the standard thottle cables and choke mechanisms or not.

I am getting the engine work done by a guy in Nantes who seems to have a good bit of experience let's hope so!