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lol. Thanks Mike. I've actually never watched that show. Sat down to once but got distracted. Watched True Blood for a while until they got deep into the gay stuff. No pun intended. Not a homophob but still turns my stomach. I thought of the redhead after looking for others. I wanted a natural red though and most of them are fakes. You'd be surprised. lol.
Lee valley? I'll keep that in mind. Thanks. Yeah I thought it was an original idea. Decided on it when I was playing with my cell holder. It's got that magnet in the leather.
No its not. I had this one done professionally. Cost me $220. I'm gonna build a larger custom one. Probably cost me a few hundred bucks but I'll save thousands.
Did a little work tonight. I took a disc brake off a cb360 and took it apart to rebuild. I purchased a new brake piston from Germany a few months ago that fits perfectly. Only problem was getting the old piston out. Had to make a hose to fit inside the caliper hole and use high pressure air to blow it out. Wasn't fun. I greased behind to piston and put it back in along with the pad THEN REALIZED that the manual doesn't call for grease in behind the piston. Looks like only brake fluid is supposed to go in there. So I went to take the pad out and broke it all to shit. Crappy. Now I have to by another pair. Boo. Enoughs enough for tonight. Time to take revenge out with online poker.
Ordered a front axle from a 550. Looks like it's wider than my 350 one that sitting in 1/2" on each side of the forks. Also discovered that the damn 350 front fender doesn't fit. I think I'm going to try to make an adapter peice though considering I'm planning on taking it off after safety is done. hee hee.
Also went to put the motor at TDC and the piston crown is WAY higher than the top of the jugs. Not sure if that's normal or not. I want to go buy some flat stock metal today to create a piston stop for across top of jugs but is there any point if the pistons are going to hit it way below TDC? I'm confused. Lol. I wish I had more experience previously building car engines or something first. Probably would have helped a lot.
Well here is a piston stop I made out of angle iron. Unfortunately I feel like a dummy cause I made it to go across both pistons instead of one at a time. But fortunately I have the gents on DTT to save my dumb ass before eventually managing to blow up my engine. lol. I'll get this "cam degree" stuff down yet.
Piston stop is to find TDC EXACTLY. There's so much dead dwell just before and after TDC that it's easy to end up with the crank in the wrong position.
The trick is to fit a degree wheel to the crank and hook up a pointer. I use a section cut out of a wire coat hanger and wrap that around a side cover screw and have it pointing ta the wheel. Carefully bring the motor up until the piston is firmly against the stop and then rotate the crank backwards and do the same thing. The angle on the degree wheel will probably be something like 40 degrees BTDC one way and say 20 BTDC the other way. Adjust the pointer or timing wheel until you get exactly the same reading backwards as forwards. That gives you true TDC.
If you have an alternator rotor and pointer, that should show exactly the same point. If not, re-mark the rotor so you can use that to find TDC in future.
Cool. While going through my crates of parts I just found 5 stock cam chain guides. One of them looks like it was never used too! It's nice to have so I can give it to the CNC programmer as an exact copy for the aftermarket ones.
Just went to dry fit the "custom adjustable sprocket" that I needed to get for the X5 megacycle cam for $155. Damn thing won't go over the lobes. Wondering if I have to take a grinder to the "custom" sprocket now. Jesus Christ. Is there anything on this engine project that doesn't have to be modified to fit? Never again. Even the parts made to fit don't fit!
Developers of aftermarket components have no way of knowing which other components you plan to use and so most do their best to get them to fit to a stock engine, where possible. It is definitely up to the builder (and often, their machinist) to get it to work. It's a difficult path, but a rewarding one.
No dude. This sprocket was MADE for this cam. Paid $155 for it too which is a rip off. Then I still had to grind it.
Yeah I'm just throwing it together now. lol. Sick of pussying around with it and walking on glass. I'm going to put a bunch of expensive components together, kick it over and see if it goes KA-BOOOOM!!! Sitting here surrounded by 12 bikes and nothing to ride and $2000 into a partially completed "race" bike that just sits here really disgusts me. The summer is almost gone and I haven't made it onto the road at all. I've had enough of it. Should have just went stock.
Pretty much. I've dropped $2000 into my motor alone (forget the rest of the bike) and I think I probably have another $500 or so still go. That assumes everything else I have planned works correctly, which has definitely not been the case so far.
I started my project in October of 2010 and at this point I'm just hoping to have it done for next summer. In the past year and a half I've had my motor apart and put back together nearly a dozen times. I've had components that worked perfectly suddenly become nonviable due to my selection in a secondary component. I've literally cried tears of frustration as plugged oil leak after oil leak. I just about called it quits when I bent up a set of valves due to a simple mistake of ignorance and impatience. I've nearly destroyed a second set when my measurements turned out to be less than accurate. I've made half a dozen trips to two different machinists to alter this bit or change that part. I've had to hand cut my own pistons because the machinist refused to accept the consequences and I'm still not 100% sure they're going to work out.
When people say that building a top shelf motor is a labor of love, they're damn right. You're not going to finish it unless you love it. There will quite literally be blood, sweat, and tears by the time you're done. You're going to want to quit. You're going to want to sell it or move onto other things. You're going to get sick of looking at your stupid box of parts and chunks of metal. But you know what? Those first few miles after you have it dialed in are going to make it all worth it. I've only covered twenty or so miles on my bike, but my grin was theatening to spill out the side of my helmet.
Just take your time. Take a break when you need it. This is not something you can hurry. This is not something that forgives you for being new. This is not something where it is acceptable to cut a corner or to wing it. This is not something for the faint of heart or the weak of will. This is something that requires you to think out every step or pay for not doing it properly. This is something that requires measurement of every dimension. Twice. This is something where the little things don't mean a lot; they mean everything. This is something that few people actually accomplish and it's what separates the men from the boys. As for what separates the women from the girls... I'm still not sure. You probably want to check with my parole officer. He seems to have a lot to say about that one... Preachy bastard.
Also... having a stock running bike makes this process a lot easier. Good to have something to ride so you don't feel rushed to complete the project bike.
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