More black sludge

Removed the crankcase cover yesterday evening. Lot's of black sludge although the bearings seem to be running smooth. A good clean out with petrol and then a good oiling and then put it back together - good game!

The 350 lives!

Not a surprise I suppose, but I do love it when it starts 3rd or 4th kick after a complete strip and rebuild!

Black sludge

As I am nearing completion of the 350, time to see what the destroyed carbon disk has done to the inside of the 500. I removed the rear cylinders, and as you can see, there is a black sludge covering everything, so far there doesn't seem to be any play in the bearings but I will only know if there is damage once I have cleaned out the crank shaft...

On the good news front, the other pistons and barrels look in perfect condition!

Radiator Fixed

As mentioned above, I got the radiator fixed on the Daytona, I thought they would just solder it, but they used some high temp resin - a bit messy if you asked me, still the guy did give it a coat of black paint to cover it up!

Technical Update

I was waiting to receive some aluminium plate through the post as I want to make some reed spacers for the 350 , before attacking the 500, as I don't want the bits all over the place in the garage. I received my 8mm and 10mm plate, with new spark plugs for the Ducati (Champion L86C) these are non resistor type plugs to go with the non-resistor type plug caps I have installed - should make for more noise on people's tellies, but more spark, and better running - at least that's the hope. I swapped the old ones out NGK B7HS they were very light, so either I need to jet up or use a different heat range for the plugs!

I think the new ones are compatible with the B6HS so I just need to revise whether 6 is hotter or cooler and what that means - I always get confused when looking at these numbers!

So, using the aluminium plate, I used a gasket as a template and then cut the plate into appropriate size bits, rounded off the corners, and then drilled out the middle, then milled off the insides to bring the hole out to the correct size.

It takes an age to remove material with the miller, I don't know whether I am being too delicate or if I should cut more off at each sweep, anyway I am nearly finished with one, and will start the next one next week.

In the mean time, the Daytona sprang a leak from the radiator, you can't see it in the photo, but when it was hot it was heavily dripping, lucky it didn't happen in the Isle Of Man! I found a workshop in Fontaine which repairs radiators, so I removed it from the bike, and took it in this morning. The guy put the rad. under pressure, and in a water bath and you could see the problem straight away, I think I could have had a go myself, but anyway I suppose 50 Euros for a professional job is OK in this day and age, all the same expensive for a bit of solder! I will post a photo of the professional job tomorrow!

I have had to order two new carbon disks for the RG, along with the rivets and some thinner gaskets to avoid anything touching, Franco has also trimmed the disks down so their diameter is slightly smaller, to avoid any possibility of touching the exterior of the crankcase. Should be receiving these soon, but as mentioned above I still need to finish the 350 before completely stripping the 500 engine.