By the time you read this Snowstorm Fern will probably have passed you by, hopefully without any dangerous repercussions; but as of this writing (January 24^th) we here in the South are still waiting with bated breath for what the forecasters are calling “a life-threatening storm” to rain down upon us like Armageddon itself. Cue Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’…

Oh, yeah, it’s the usual – frenzied shoppers out fighting in the aisles over the last gallons of milk and bread while clutching packages of bottled water in their attempts to grab the last few cups of Ramen noodles.

I had prepared a little earlier than that (he said smugly) and got all my stuff bought before the latest version of what Hunter Thompson refers to as “The Fear”- Consumer Edition broke bad upon the populace, so at least I was spared the brunt of snowstorm paranoia. I did return to the store just yesterday, hoping against hope because I’d forgotten to buy half-n-half for my morning coffee, but by then the shelves had been stripped clean of anything remotely tagged ‘half-n-half’ or even regular creamer, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to put “Zio” or whatever it is in my coffee. It’s my opinion that something like almond milk has no business in a proper cup of coffee, but Hey...! You Do You. Looks like I’ll just have to use regular ol’ milk to get through this. Quelle Horreur.

But what really pisses me off is Mother Nature has effectively shut me out of my own garage!

I have a big steel garage where the magic happens, and with temperatures dropping through the basement all this week and next, it’s like trying to work in a freezer. And it sucks because I’m right in the middle of putting together a 1972 JDM CB500 to relate that experience here.

Work is progressing, although this bike has started to show all it’s dirty laundry. Last week, taking advantage of a few days of mild weather, I was able to get the cylinder head into my vapor blaster and remedy what I thought was going to be a problem, that being really nasty valve seats.

I thought for sure this head was ‘done,’ but then I got to thinking ‘Well – nothing ventured, nothing gained” and ran it through one more time and was very pleased to see that they cleaned up nicely, so at least it looks like I’ll be able to grind the seats. Yay!

I turned my attention to the front brake reservoir, which was locked up solid.

Ewww...! 

Here I’m using some heat and trying to get the dang mirror out without breaking it off..rust is a helluvan adhesive! It eventually DID come out okay, but if you work on old machines, you know that feeling of borderline torque you feel just before it *SNAPS!*?? Yeah, it felt like that. Made me sweat a little bit, because as you know, if that or any other bolt snaps trying to get it out, well, you’ve just turned a ten-minute operation into a three-day job.

...and then THIS happened!

This is one of the two pistons out of the four that were locked up tight by rust, of course. As you can see, I originally tried using a pick to get the rings out, but rings are fragile things that don’t like being coerced, and *SNAP*!

I figured there had to be a better way. I tried soaking them in parts cleaner, which didn’t do much, and then consulted the Interwebs for a better solution, and lo and behold there was! And I shamefully admit that even after all these years of repairing bikes I didn’t know about this method until I knew!

And you might already know this too, but if you take some propane like MAPP gas – (in the yellow cylinders at places like Lowes, Home Depot, etc. It burns hotter than regular, blue-bottled propane) and heat the stuck rings really well, you can actually SEE the stuck rings becoming UN-stuck! Add a little PB Blaster or the like to the ring lands and keep heating it, you can actually get the rings unstuck without breaking them; I had no idea! Be advised the piston does get super burn-your-fingers-quick hot, though, so be sure to wear some heavy-duty gloves to handle them – but it works!

So that’s where I am in this rebuild process. As of now, I’m contemplating whether or not I should just get new rings, or replace all the pistons and rings with new ones. Yes, all new parts would be nice, but now that I have the pistons sorted, all I really need is the rings. And yet...