After the restoration: 9600 Mile Service

Not really much to see, but I can sure feel the leak. It’s directly below the bottom head screw. Perhaps it contributed to the dirt that can be seen on the head. I know it’d been contributing to the spooge that’d been showing up on the toe of my left boot.

These three images show the path of the leak. The head will need some dressing before I stick it back on the bike with a new gasket.

Next was the rear end. I’d not normally check the rear end at this point but found problems last service. I pulled the fill plug and found the fluid level overflowing. Probably a bad seal between rear end and drive shaft. Next I pulled the drain plug.

I checked the drive shaft oil because of what I found when checking the rear end. As expected, there was less oil than there should be. I’d estimate I pulled about 20 CC from the drive shaft instead of the 100 CC that would normally be there. I’m sure it migrated to the rear end, causing the overflow I saw there.

I think Scott showed me this trick. I added a washer as a spacer between the right muffler mounting tab and the frame. It makes the right muffler stick out just slightly, but gives the bike a more balanced look from the rear.

I pulled the wheel and checked its balance while I had it off the bike. The balancer is the Marc Parnes unit with the addition of a front wheel reducing spacer to center the wheel bearings. I’d checked the rear wheel bearings a few months ago. Of course I cleaned the hubcap and rims while the wheel was off the bike, too.

I removed the mounting nuts and then unscrewed the right hand shock mount and removed the drive. The brake shoes came off along with the brake lever – I’ll use both with the replacement drive. The paper gasket between drive shaft and drive was in excellent shape. It too will be used with the replacement drive.

The drive mounted to the drive shaft, but the shock mounting bolt did not want to start. A bottle jack under the drive helped line up the shock mounting hole. The bolt started much easier this way. The brake pivot and cam were very lightly greased and the brake shoes installed.

The original brake lever is installed along with the rest of the brake linkage, lightly greased. The drive splines were greased when I finished rebuilding the drive. The wheel was put back on the bike. The bike came off the center stand and I bounced it up and down a few times before putting it back on the stand and tightening the pinch bolt.

I use this wooden fixture to support the bike when jacking it up to get the front wheel off the ground. The side stand is slightly in the way, so I support the bike by the bottom of the engine at the oil pan mounting flange, not the oil pan.

This time I remembered to detach the front brake cable before removing the front wheel. Once the wheel was off the bike I put some jack stands under the front swing arm. This is more stable than the bottle jack. Also, the bottle jack looses pressure over time.

I’ve an old rear axle which is combined with a length of pipe to form my wheel bearing maintenance tool. The pipe goes over the end of the axle to keep the bearing stack aligned. A few hits with a dead blow hammer and the stack is out, reading for cleaning and checking. Of course the bearing retaining nut is first removed.

All of the parts of the stack are removed, cleaned, inspected, lightly oiled, then re-assembled to check the bearing pre-load. The bearings are fine. The pre-load was a slight touch too tight. Adding a shim would make it too loose. I gave the outer spacer a few figure eights on some 600 grit paper and tried again. Perfect.

I checked the tire air pressure. It was down about 2 lbs. I brought it up to 28 PSI. Then I put the tire on the balancer. The weights needed to move a bit. After balancing I removed my greasy finger prints with the help of some Mothers wheel polish. The wheel is ready to go back on the bike. But first…

The first picture is of the replacement dampers. The second shows the upper shock eye for the left side shock assembly.
Other than the elongation, the silent block is OK, so I will still use it. I’m curious to see of the right side is the same.

I use the Ed Korn shock spring compressor to save knuckles when removing the damper. A side-by-side comparison shows that the Boge has a slightly longer throw. The damper rod is thicker on the Koni. The rubber “donuts” that are hard to get on/off the Koni slide down the rod of the Boge.

The assembly goes together easily. No anti-seize was used. I learned that lesson. The shock assembly and tire are put asside for now. I’ll change dampers in the right hand side later. Then the fender and front swing arm will be removed to check the swing arm bearings.

Take a good look at the first picture and see if you can spot the problem. Give up? Without the shock assemblies the two jack stands are doing nothing more than holding the swing arm off the ground. I removed the fender then positioned one of the jack stands under the timing cover where it can support the front of the bike.

I washed the front fender; it’s easy when it’s off the bike. It’s also easier to see the chipped paint on the leading and trailing edges of the fender when clean.

The front swing-arm came off pretty easy once I broke it free. It was torqued way too tight. I pulled the thrust bushing out of the seal on both sides. The seals are the double lipped variety which may be one of the reasons I couldn’t get new grease in through the swing-arm grease fitting.

The bike looks funny with no front end. Since access is easy I detailed the down tubes and cleaned out the grime around the steering damper. There’s no sign of steering bearing play or notching.
I’m hoping that my front end shimmy was caused by the (lack of) front wheel balance.

The only way to check the swing arm bearing is to first remove the seal. I clipped off the soft lip then used Ed Korn’s seal/race removal tool to pull the seal. I ordered replacement seals last night as I didn’t have any of this size socked away.

The bearings seemed a bit stiff until I cleaned out all of the old grease using a WD-40 bath, Simple Green and a toothbrush, hot water, another WD-40 bath, then blown dry with compressed air. They are fine. I lightly oiled them and put them in a zip lock bag.

The pipes came off for cleaning. The last remnants of the melted plastic bag that once got caught on the center stand came off with some elbow grease, 0000 steel wool, and Mothers. The crossover tube came out looking almost new.

Before putting the pipes back on I wanted to look at the side stand bolt. It sometimes comes loose. The pipes are in the way so it can not come all the way out, but the other end of the bolt is the stop used to keep the side stand from moving too far forward. I remove the bolt, cleaned things, added some grease where the side stand attaches to its base, then replaced the bolt using some medium thread locker. That should solve the problem.

When putting the side stand back together I noticed the dip stick wasn’t screwed in. I don’t screw it in until there is oil in the bike. May as well do that now. I double checked that I’d torqued the drain plug (I did) then added two quarts of oil. Now the dip stick can be screwed in. That’s it for fluids. I’m not checking the transmission this service.

The pipes and mufflers were put back on the bike with lots of anti-seize. I put everything on loosly, then tighten working from the front of the bike to the rear. By the time all is tight there are lots of anti-sieze colored finger prints over the pipes. A final bit of cleaning/polishing makes it look pretty again.

The left plug looks OK. It’s out of the bike because I need to re-torque the head. It’s been about 400 miles since I replaces the gasket. Close enough. The 6 head screws are backed off a bit then brought to 25 lbs-ft in 5 lbs-ft increments using a cross pattern.

After a re-torque the valves were adjusted. I figured that as long as I was doing the left side I may as well do the right side, too. The head screws on the exhaust side of the right are tight. This is one of the signs of a butterhead according to Duane’s page on /2 cylinder heads. I set the torque as best I could then adjusted the valves. I think finding a replacement head is going to move up my priority list.

The bike is back together and ready to ride. I should probably check the timing. I’ll do that with a timing light next time I start the bike. The front brake may need a slight adjustment, too.