After the restoration: 10,800 Mile Service

The odometer is telling me it’s time for a service. The engine run timer, part of the tiny tach, is saying 31 hours since the last service (I reset the timer every service). If I’m remembering things correctly this is typical. The timing is good as I’ve also ordered a new rear tire. The ME 880 front tire I’d mounted on the rear is wearing much faster than the front. Not surprising.

The engine drain plug was free of metal bits. Good. The engine oil was dark, but not too dark. I cleaned and replaced the drain plug and added 2 quarts. I’m using Castrol 20w50 these days.

Once I finished with the engine oil I put the bike on the lift I bought this winter. I like working with the bike raised, and the wheels of the lift let me move the bike around. I’m going to start by pulling the rear wheel and replacing the final drive (again). This is my original drive, re-furbished. It has better splines than the spare drive currently on the bike.

A quick glance at the final drive drain found sludge, but no slivers. The sludge did not feel too gritty when rubbing the sludge between my fingers. I think I’ll just clean the case of this drive and store it away. No need to open it up, again.

The transmission oil level looked good, just barely below the threads. The color was good, too. Looked like the new stuff in the bottle. Yeah, you can’t see this in the photo. I didn’t have enough light.

With the bike on the stand it was real easy to see that I’d lost one of the center stand mounting nuts. I put a new nut on the bike, but didn’t have a wave washer in that size. I used a regular washer for now, adding wave washers to my shopping list. That’s all for today. I’ll keep the bike this way until the tire arrives and I can re-mount the rear wheel.

Fed Ex delivered the Avon AM 21 I ordered. I had a choice, the 110/90 or the 100/90. It’s been my experience that with some manufactures the 110/90 is closer to the profile of the original 3.50 and with others the 100/90 is closer. I should have ordered the AM 21 in 100/90. The 110/90 is larger than the ME 880 which was real close in profile to the 3.50. Next time, assuming I like the tire, I’ll try the 100/90.

I’m not going to comment on actually changing the tire other than to say it took way too long. Getting the old tire off was a pain. The new tire went on only slightly easier. Balancing was extra easy. I put the wheel on the balance stand and it barely moved. I moved the wheel. It barely moved again, and came to rest at a different spot. I hadn’t even removed the old weights, yet. Guess I got lucky.

This picture shows that the tire is a tight fit. I don’t need to deflate the tire to mount the wheel, but I do have to remove the nut and back out the bolt holding the left shock. I’m curious to see how well the tire rides and if it effects the mild 32 MPH shimmy that has been plaguing the bike for the last thousand miles or so.

The wheel is on the bike. The plan is to work on engine related things tomorrow. According to the schedule I’ll be checking cylinder base nuts, re-torquing the heads, and cleaning carbs in addition to typical tune up tasks. I recently checked both front and rear wheel bearings as well as the front swing arm bearings. I’ll be skipping those tasks this service.

Before I remove the front cover I like to disconnect the battery ground cable. I’ve a quick disconnect to make this easy. I’ve a habbit of dropping little metal screws when playing with the points. Disconnecting the ground strap makes it safe when such screws land in the generator.

Both plugs look OK. The left plug was still about 0.60mm, but the gap on the right hand plug was larger. I adjusted it back to 0.60 mm. I suspect that I just didn’t pay close enough attention when I installed the plug. Both plugs look about the same.

I checked all 8 cylinder base nuts. Two of them very slightly moved. I retorqued the heads by loosening and then retorquing each head screw one at a time in a cross pattern. The exhaust half of the right hand head is going to need work sooner, instead of later. The head screws are getting harder to turn becase the holes in the head are slowly collapsing.

The points gap was adjusted and the static timing set.
This involved the usual back and forth. I was going to start up the bike and set the dynamic timing and move on to the carbs, but it was raining. Rain is OK and new tires are OK, but why ride on new tires in the rain when you don’t have too. I’ll check dynamic timing and the carbs, later.

So what’s left. I had the air filter off a short while ago. It’s still fine. I need to oil levers, linkages, and hinges. I’ll do that last. Wheel bearings were also recently re-packed. No problems there. I verified the steering was OK when the bike was on the stand. Mainly I’ve got timing and carb work left. Maybe tomorrow.