Hot Enough For Ya...?

This summer has turned out to be a downright hot one. June took its sweet time getting there, but when July hit, it wasted no time cranking up the heat. This pic was taken in the garage July third - 115 degrees! 

My garage is an all-steel pole barn, and when the sun cranks up the temperature to 'Bake', all that heat turns the place into an oven, which gets to be a little problematic after a while. I start sweating like a sinner in church, greasy hands get greasier, tools start slipping, and even though I prefer a warm climate 115 degrees is a bit much.

I do have a shop fan that sounds like a Pratt and Whitney airplane engine when it fires up and it helps, but even with the doors open the heat rises and it just tends to turn the shop into a big convection oven, which sucks because I need to get things done. 

I've been working on this little 1972 CB350 Four, which is coming along. So far I have the frame and gauges repainted, cleaned up the wheels as best I could, re-did the forks and got her up on the slab in the lab to start the reconstruction but it's been a start-and-stop process with all the problems I've encountered. 

The first 'biggie' was the head. Most of the bikes I've rebuilt have no problems other than they haven't run in ages, which is fine- but then you get the ones that haven't run in ages, the engine won't turn, and then you discover WHY the engine won't turn, and it's usually (usually!) because the PO did (or didn't do) something that would effectively seal off the engine innards from the elements, so all the different seasons work their way into the engine itself and do their dirty work. Here's a little picture tour of what I've encountered so far...

First, the manifold boots were so old and stiff I managed to pull one off the cylinder head, which I've never had happen before (always a first time, right??). THAT'S going to be some money - imagine a cash register 'cha-CHING!!" here...

Then...

Cut Headers

I run into this sort of thing a lot - not the cut headers themselves, but some mouth-breathing 'yahoo' who can't take the time to properly remove a part and just pulls out the 'ol Sawzall - note these stubs are on the Number Two and Number Three cylinders, which were in the 'Open' position...which leads to this...

That's the Number Two piston on the right, there; Number Three (which wasn't too bad, actually) is to the left. Number Two had all the rings frozen in their lands, while Number Three only had one, but both of these pistons had to get new rings. Unfortunately.  "Cha-CHING!!"

But since those valves were open and 'sat' for so long, that created this...

Those two yellow circles are the stuck-open valve, and the tail end of the broken-off spark plug threads. Yes, I was able to get the spark plug threads out and did my best with the valve seat (the valve itself was okay); but correcting this was a total PITA - and I think I did - but even after lapping and re-lapping the valve seat a few times, I'm still not sure if it'll work (I know, I know...but I have neither the money nor the means to re-cut the seat. I did the best I could with what I had. So we'll see what happens.  FWIW, this is the 'Before' pic).

And then there was the cylinder head...there's a few things going on in this pic: that flame you see there is my effort to heat up that stuck Number Two piston so I can get some acetone and transmission fluid down into the piston rings to loosen it up. I ultimately wound up just putting a wooden dowel on it and beating it into submission - which was pretty cathartic, actually.  

Number Two is the gasket. I'm not sure if this is the original gasket, but I have no reason to think that it's not; but that stuff is HARD! This one - with the flame - came off easily, but the lower head gasket seen here...?? Not so much. This SUCKED...it took about three days to get all that crap off (Oh, and please note the Lisle scraper, that tool with the red handle. If you do this kind of stuff, those things are worth every penny)!

But extreme heat and refurbishment difficulties notwithstanding, I am making progress; as you can see in the first photo, I'm just about ready to get the engine back in the frame, and the engine itself is coming along... 

From this...

To THIS...! 

Iiiits Happening...! 

A Clean Engine is a Happy Engine!