Spent some time on the build this week, the weather is making me anxious to get this thing rolling. Didn't wrestle the valves yet, decided I'd save those for another day. I may just do an acetone test on them and see if they're solid, and if so run them as they are.
Last week I brought the cylinder in for a hone/bore, but realized I forgot the pistons at home, so that's delayed another week since they need to measure them for wear to see if I can get away with just a hone and rings.
So, I took to getting the lower case ready for soda blasting and paint. It was pretty scuzzy with 40 years of road grime and grease so I decided to do some serious scrubbing to save me on the baking soda stash. I used this degreasing spray which worked really well. Half a can of that and a couple toothbrushes ate up my day, but it looks decent after that. Also cleaned up the shop, It's amazing what a sheet of plywood, some sawhorses, and some ziploc bags can do for your sanity and organization
Then I got to taping, the typical blue tape wasn't working well in the cold shop, so I went with duct tape. Just a little tip I accidentally learned is that if you gently apply heat with a propane torch to the duct tape it has a kind of 'shrink-wrap' effect and it sticks it on very well.
So, the case is ready for blasting and then paint. I am going to pick up some engine paint this week and hopefully get the cylinder bored/honed so next week I can get the painting over with, then the following week hopefully have the whole engine back together and ready to test.
The carbs I was looking at fell through, so I either have to wrestle with the ones I have or look for another set. I might ask at the bike scrapyard this week, but I don't know if I'll find anything better than what I already have. Any tips on getting the threaded-in jet out if it's all chewed up beyond screwdriver world? I don't have an ez-out that small, not sure if they even make them.
Any general tips from anyone I should pay attention to at this point would be much appreciated.
By the way, wanted to give a shout out to Dime City Cycles. Just got my first order in from them, it was fast, complete, and even had a couple freebie decals in there. Gotta love getting packages in the mail every day, it's like christmas, but you have to pay for it.