Engine inspiration thread!

[teazer]

Old habits die hard.  This wasn't really necessary on a street bike, but is in keeping with the Street tracker idea of a racer on the street.



The kickstart level was adapted from a modern MX bike to make it look more competition oriented and the safety wire is an old habit.   

[teazer]

Before:




After:


Some assembly required as they say...

[beachcomber]

Any chance of this part of the thread being sticky'd?

[Tim]

So you have to cut the safety wire to check/change your oil?

[Hoosier Daddy]

So you have to cut the safety wire to check/change your oil?

Meh... to anyone who has done a lot of safe-tieing that is a piece of cake. I still got my safety wire pliers from the military days. With a set of these it takes about a minute. But the chances of a fill plug coming loose after tieing are slim to none... plus the COOL factor is top notch!
 

[teazer]

Hoosier, That's exactly what we use. And my wife has her own pair (that didn't sound right) of lock pliers for her race bikes.

It was partly habit, and partly because that plug is a push in and rubber plugs and lube is not a conversation I'm used to holding......

[m511y]

Meh... to anyone who has done a lot of safe-tieing that is a piece of cake. I still got my safety wire pliers from the military days. With a set of these it takes about a minute. But the chances of a fill plug coming loose after tieing are slim to none... plus the COOL factor is top notch!
 

I had an oil cap come off on me and I ended up having to rebild the engine. This would have saved me a lot of money.

[gpfaster]

Kudos to you guys that have posted pictures of your noise makers, you have far more patience than I..  I'm a little OCD so I can't have an engine that clean and pretty looking, but I do admire what has been done here..
 
Pic of my last one, 1975 xs 650 B.  .25 oversize, but other than that its stock stock, barrels were painted with VHT gloss black, as well as the cam covers and the adjuster cover.  All the parts that look like aluminum are just that, head and top hat soda blasted, cases stripped and polished.  I have another engine that i'm going to start tearing down tomorrow, i'll start a thread on that and do a step by step on it.  Its seized so it might prove to be interesting...  Cheers.
 

[Hoosier Daddy]

Here is the Lump in my current build... little before and after.
Again, Duplicolors 1650 for the aluminum case, VHT Black on the cylinders and polished side covers.
 
Before:
 


 
During:
 


 
After:
 

[beachcomber]

Do any of you guys have experience of welding Yamaha [ or any ] engine side covers?
 
I want to "lose" the YAMAHA motif on the two side cases [ TR1 and XV920 ] before I paint the engine.
 
I was going to use body filler, but not sure it will be up to the job.