Ian's TX/CBR500A Yamahonda whatever

Clutch tool came in saturday, clutch was disassembled within 5 minutes. Having the right tool definitely helps, lol. Now the whole engine is torn apart, my original crank bearings are pretty worn, but the spare engine has both the heavier crank and practically new bearings. A quick swap and we're good to go. Now it's just finding time at work to get all the cases blasted and cleaned, lapping the valves in and rebuilding the head and ordering a few new seals and a gasket set.
 
Well, the 1 piece head, the heavier crank (roughly 8lbs more), thicker cushions on the adjuster for the cam, starter and balancer chains, reconfigured and strengthened gasket set all combined to make the 500 into a fairly reliable and strong engine. But by the time that was all done, the reputation for blown gaskets, cracked heads and annoyingly time consuming chain adjustments had pretty much solidified the cancellation of the 500 engine.
 
I know that a 'bad rep' doesn't necessarily mean the machine is no good ::) ;) I love how those 4 valves look in the head, Nice 8)
 
There's been a bunch of bikes that were "bad" when they came out, but honestly, most of them only had a couple of fairly simple fixes, and voila, strong reliable running bike, with little worry of future problems.
 
My TX500A had great strong mid-upper range power and if I had found a fresh set of cam/balancer chains I would have installed them and kept it as an excellent long distance touring bike;it handled great w/ that double down(frame reminded me a lot of my RD350 from the past ;)) tube frame too.I was new to the bike and a couple dealers that i was buying parts from told me it had a bad "rep'.. ::) I don't believe any of the folks i actually spoke to over the phone(I lived on an island)ever owned and drove one but they had some negative talk.The one I had still had the 2-piece cyl. head and I just torqued it down a couple times after i replaced the rings w/ STD bore pistons and did a valve cut on it;I never had to mess w/ torquing the head down after that and it never leaked from any top-end gaskets either.I bought the bike(Blue 8))from the second owner w/ 8K on it and it wasn't abused looking or over-heated.The bike ran great but I maxed-out the adjustment on the balancer chains.I owned it for 2 yrs. and put 12K on it on some nice long rides;it was smooth. :)
 
Got the head blasted Friday at work. Got lucky and the valve seats are actually in really good shape. Most of what I was worried about was just build up and not actual damage. Still have a few pieces to remove from the split cases and then taping them up and I'll be blasting them soon as well.
 
Sand. We use 2x fine media at work and I've got a hookup on hydro blasting once it's all finished to remove any semblance of sand that may be missed.
 
Shot of the head after sand. Random fingerprints from dirty hands will be dealt with after all is said and done.
 

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That must have taken a chunk of your time,deep fins;I'm glad the seats looked better than you originally thought.
 
grcamna5 said:
That must have taken a chunk of your time,deep fins;I'm glad the seats looked better than you originally thought.
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Our Blast cabinet is pretty big and pushes plenty of air. Still, took about a half hour due to those deep fins and heavy carbon.
 
Don't know if you're interested, but I have a couple bottom-ends and a Newtronic ignition for sale. One's a 78.
 
Jewbacca said:
Our Blast cabinet is pretty big and pushes plenty of air. Still, took about a half hour due to those deep fins and heavy carbon.
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That must be a Big blaster if it did all that in a 1/2 hr.
 
grcamna5 said:
That must be a Big blaster if it did all that in a 1/2 hr.
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It's like 2ft x 3ft. It works for everything but the frame and wheels. I kind of miss the roto-blaster at my old job. 8ft table, automatic 20rpm rotation and it shot #10 birdshot at 150psi out of 4 dozen nozzles. There wasn't a paint made it wouldn't demolish; a bit hard on aluminum though haha.

two-smoker said:
Don't know if you're interested, but I have a couple bottom-ends and a Newtronic ignition for sale. One's a 78.
Click to expand...

I "think" I've got the bottom end taken care of. I have both the cases and internals from both engines, so I should be able to get the best out of each of them. Once I get closer to buttoning it up, I might get in touch with you about that ignition though.
 
Finally got off my ass at lunch and did something productive. It's been hectic at work and I just haven't had the energy to do a lot during the lunch hour. But, I finally made my 45 degree seat lapping blank and it turned out beautifully. I'll snap some pics of it, and it's 30 degree counterpart, tomorrow. I did however take it for a quick spin, making sure my contact surface was within range and angle was correct. This was just preliminary sanding. I was more just trying to see if it was actually going to work on Titanium Nitride valve seats, which it did to my relief. I'll have to make up 2 more for the exhaust as they're different sizes. Once they are sanded down to where there's no more pitting (there's some light pits that would probably be fine, but it's apart, I might as well do it right) and I double and triple check for uniform angle widths across the 4 intakes and exhausts, I can set the valves up and skim them with the lathe grinder, then finally lap them to the valves. Anyway, pics:

First is before, second is after 2-3 runs of 320 grit.
 

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