If so give yourself a big attaboy and when you get home this evening celebrate with the libation of your choice!
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Oil Sump & Strainer Cleaning
Alright! You’ve got your latest barn/field/junkyard find home, it still had good compression, so after cleaning the carbs, topping off the oil and putting in fresh gas it actually fired up and ran okay. Yeehaa! now comes the hard part, do not immediately go running in the house to scour the internet looking for the thousands of dollars worth of parts & accessories you need to restore or customize your new to you machine, there is one more thing you must do to be sure that you don’t need to tear the engine down to bare cases, or perhaps just throw the whole damn thing in the trash. Most vintage Japanese & British machines have an oil sump (oil pan to some of you) strainer, that has probably never even been looked at since the machine left the factory. For this lesson we are going to remove the oil sump (pan) from my personal 1980 Honda CB650 and see what we find inside. After a few minutes running time & a valve adjustment this old thing has less the 8 p.s.i. difference in compression from the lowest to highest cylinder, I can live with that, if there is nothing wrong in the bottom end. Lets have a look shall we. First if you have a lift put it up on the lift securely.
The mufflers are off of mine because I am planning on binning them anyway, it is not necessary to remove them for this job on this motorcycle. On some bikes it may be required, refer to your service manual for details.
Locate the oil drain plug,
and remove it with the appropriate wrench and drain the oil into a catch pan.
Since this involves changing the oil you might as well go ahead & change the filter too. On these old air cooled Hondas the filter is a cartridge in this housing on the front of the engine.
Remove the filter and housing, be sure to move the catch pan so that it catches the oil from the housing.
Now move to the bottom of the machine and begin loosening the bolts on the sump. The CB650 has 10 bolts that are all the same size & length, so all I have to do is don’t lose any. If you motorcycle has different size or length bolts holding the sump on be sure to note which bolts go into which holes.
Before you completely remove the last bolt and thus the sump be sure you slide the drain pan back into place beneath the engine.
Before you rush to dump the oil pan set it on the bench and have a good look at the goo stuck in the bottom of it. This will tell you a lot about the health of your engine. Believe it or not the crappy looking mess in the picture below is actually what you hope to find.
This one has a thick coat of clutch dust & what ever dirt that got into the engine & settled out of the oil, what I don’t see are any pieces of gear teeth or metal shavings that indicate an serious problem with the engine or transmission. Now take a magnet & swish it around in the muck to see if it picks up anything. Mine came back clean this time. This is no 100% guarantee that all is well with the transmission etc. but it does make me feel better about buying the parts needed to get it ride-able.
Now it is time to inspect & clean the strainer screen.
While you are down ther3 have a peek up into the engine to see how everything looks.
On a CB650 slide the drain pan back under the engine & pull down on the strainer, it should slide out.
Once you get it out carefully inspect the screen and if it is damaged or loose replace it. If it looks good wash it out in the parts washer.
Now you just have to clean everything up inspect & replace all gaskets & o-rings as needed, and reassemble everything in reverse order installing a new oil filter & fresh oil. NOw you know that you have one less thing to worry about.
Peace ‘Yall
The 2013 AMCA Southern National Meet!
This was the first time I have attended this event, the AMCA Southern National Meet. I went on Saturday & had to duck a few showers in the morning but other than that it was a great day! There were some truly outstanding motorcycles on the grounds along with a few neat old bicycles too. Here are a few of the pictures I took around the show grounds, enjoy!
The theme for this year was British Iron and the were some first class examples placed inside of one of the exhibition halls.
This was the first time I had ever seen a Briggs & Stratton motor wheel. Neat old piece. The same gentleman also had the Smith motor wheel pictured below.
This event is held each year at Denton Farm Park in Denton, N.C. This is a fantastic venue for events of this type check their website for a schedule of different interesting events throughout the year.
Dark Horse Racing 9623 The May Website of the Month!
Do you really want to know how fast you can go with a 250cc four stroke engine? Then go check out Dark Horse Racing 9623. This is the internet home to the Worlds Fastest 250 Ninja, as certified by the East Coast Timing Association. Be sure to watch the video of his 123 mph run. Go check it out here at this link!
Something to Write With (& other essential documentation tools.)
For this random tech tip I am going to talk about one of the best tools that you absolutely must have in your toolbox, a notepad & something to write with. Some mechanics and owners even go so far as to keep actual log books of the work they do. These are wonderful people to do business with & buy motorcycles from, and if it suits your personality I highly recommend that you do the same. For the rest of us, myself included, who are not quite so anal, a small note pad or note book is essential to write down the occasional part number or measurement.
I have even sketched out an assembly or written down re-assembly directions for things that I have taken apart. Even if you have an eidetic memory, sooner or later you will likely miss some small detail or another, but the act of writing things down helps you to remember them better, and prevent mistakes in re-assembly, parts ordering & custom fabrication.
A good cheap calculator is another great item to have for doing quick calculations & conversions. If you are a machinist or a designer you will probably have a scientific calculator but for the vast majority of us, a simple little calculator is all you need for things like figuring out what size shim to use when adjusting valves, or how much further a part can go before it hits the wear limit. Here I must confess to overkill, since my day job is working in the engineering department of a local industrial equipment manufacturing company I own multiple scientific calculators, it’s just how I roll.
And last but not least you probably have one of the greatest, & most handy mechanical tools right there in your pocket. A smartphone with a camera has become one of my favorite ways of documenting progress on a job or a project. Take a picture before you start, take another one for each part you remove. Then if you need to refer back to your pictures to remember which way the thinga-ma-bob fits into the doohickey, you have pictures to refer back too.
By the way, here is a quick update on my Honda CB650 project bike. Originally purchased to be modified in the “cafe racer” style I have since changed my mind and am now currently pursuing an “urban scrambler” style. This is going to be really cool so stay tuned!