After the restoration: Engine Teardown [page 7]

I’ll spend a few hours out in the garage removing the front main and rear cam bearing and clean up the case this afternoon. Brent called with good news about the rear bearing. The plastic cage had shifted position, causing the inner race to cock when trying to pull using the outer race. Once he cut off the outer race he was able to use his puller on the inner race and remove the bearing. The crank will require some tweaking.

Back to the task at hand. Heat the back of the case and the cam bearing falls out. Usually. I got impatient and used a blind hole puller to help things along.

The front main, on the other hand, fell out of its carrier at about 150 degrees F. Once the bearing cooled down I washed it and blew it dry before giving it a spin. Not bad, but not perfect, either. I can feel a bit of a rumble. With that amount of grit going through the engine this was expected. I’ll use new bearings all around.

While wiping the excess grunge off the case with copious amounts of WD-40 I noticed two things… the cylinder mounting studs were dinged up a bit and the leak by the bottom of the left cylinder was caused by a small gouge in the case that the gasket didn’t seal. I chased the threads and dressed the cylinder mounting surface to remove any high spots around the gouge.

Hot water, a green scotchbright sponge, and simple green is all I needed to get the case and carrier looking near new. I blew both dry with compressed air, paying attention to the various oil passages and blind holes where water could accumulate. A bit more WD-40 was used on the steel parts and I dripped fresh oil through the oil passages, tilting the case to get full coverage.

That’s it. I covered the clean case and put it and the work table away. It’s time to make up a list of needed parts (and prices). That is the part of the job I’m not all that crazy about.