My blood. Cubbie's guts. Everywhere. I started work on the valve timing at 11am today. I had soon smacked my knuckles on the fins as I undid the spark plug, and the silly thing is, I knew I would, but I kept on going. With the zorst and carby removed, rocker covers and oil feed pipe out of the way, I set about slackening the head nuts, and I don't care if that's not the proper name for them. Two of them seemed awfully reluctant to shift and I was concerned about stripping the thread or breaking something, but recalled that when Fido helped me assemble the top end all that time ago, he had trouble with them then. Got them off eventually, but then the head wouldn't shift, I guess it was sort of welded in position - oil tight I have to say, not much chance of that now :-(
A thwack with a bit of wood and a mallet soon had it free and just pulling it up about 1cm gave enough room to manouver the pushrods and rockers to the right places. Carefully holding the tappets in the 'up' position enabled me to fit the 'big cog' back in exactly the same position as it had come off in, if you know what I mean. The thing is, the dots and dashes didn't line up on the timing pinion (that's the small cog of course) but at least it meant I could secure the head back down without tappets and pushrods dropping out. Easier said than done, because for some reason, the upper pushrod tube O-ring decided it didn't want to live there anymore and each time I tightened the head nuts up, it sort of oozed out. Numerous times I tried to hold it and do the nuts up but without success. With my patience wearing rather thin (I was possibly verging on the border of crabbitness)the help of Mrs Bikerchick was called for. It's bleedin' easy with two people!
Next up was to rotate the engine by hand to check that the dots would line up, 'cos I was told that they don't line up on every revolution so I turned it, and turned it, and turned it............yawn...........patience ebbing away......hand throbbing and stomach rumbling.......gave up on that in the end and phoned a collegue at the mag who was able to decipher the instructions in the Triumph Workshop Manual. Just undo the timing pinion and rotate it until the dots line up - right? I hope so. But he forgot to mention I'd need a special puller. A quick call at 4pm to Greystone Enterprises has one on the way to me, just hope it arrives by Saturday so I can get it finished.
Oh, you want to know if my MZ is ok? Well, normally I just have to drain the carb after a winter holiday, but the screw is so mashed up that I can't get any grip on it. So no bikes on the road for me just now. And all this glorious weather too! HUMBUG.
Anyway, the postie brought something good today - my entry form for the S&T rally which I hope to go to. Oh, and a huge pile of cards and chocs....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
A HUGE pile of chocs and cards .... that'll be ur fan club on valentines day ......
Couple of priciples shoot into my mind whilst reading your "head work" thingy ........
ok there's learn by doing, which is excellent .... but theres Keep it simple stupid (KISS) and stuff like, if it feels like yer working too hard, you probably are ......
The cubbie was running, so the timing was right, all thats happened is the cam gear fell out ...
so cant see the need to be pulling cogs off with pullers (especially when ur going to find out it was keyed on and will only go back on in one position).
Keeping it simple... take the head off, as in all the way.... assmble cam/cogs whatever so they all line up ..... replace head/replace rocker box's .....
the cubbie really isnt that difficult .......
best of luck anyway
Yeh wot he said, and if you know you are going to bash your knuckles then wear gloves (your bike gloves are perfect for this) until the hard /tough bit gives, then take em off before you get oil all over them.
So what do virtual choc's taste like then?
KISS (Oil Field term)remember. Try just a teeny weeny bit of oil on the plug thread when you put it back in and some Coppa'cote on the zorst nuts too, when you have the head off why don't you change out the 2 duff studs while you are at it? screw 2 nuts onto the thread and tighten them against each other, then put your gloves back on and remove the offending article, a wee bit Coppa'cote on them as well when you put the head back on and use new nuts if you can as the others will have been damaged by the thread on the bad studs.
My Dad taught me that I should always do a job assuming that I would be the poor chump that would have to take it apart next time, good advice that has served me well over the years. Though I have been known to over engineer things. lol
I thought you would be opening Valentines cards on the 14th rather than working on your bike!
Hehe, thanks for the comments chaps. You'll be pleased to know that Cubbie is now up and running - just about to blog my progress with it. Valentines cards??? Well of course, I opened them first then worked on Cubbie!
Post a Comment