Idiot v. Motorbikes, Rounds 3, 4, and 5

[Rob Frankham]

The cylinders honed up nicely and I took Craig Hansen's recommendation to buy rings for 1st OS and file-to-fit to the minimum spec for ring end gap. The OS rings actually overlap in a standard bore:

Not sure I'd be happy with that. Cast rings are pretty rigid. I would expect increased bore wear and an increased chance of ring breakage.

Rob

I wondered that, too. But the source is the owner of the dealership and Airhead expert who has been dealing with R100s for over 40 years. He doesn't like boring R100 cylinders as they tend to distort and finds this trick helps keep a slightly worn bore going with standard pistons.

Fair enough, you listen to the advice, make the decision and take the consequences... I hope I'm wrong.

Rob

[melville]

This was my experience/understanding when I had reached out-of-spec on my R100/7. So I decided to go with a Siebenrock kit rather than to try 1st over and new pistons. My out-of-spec wasn't just bigger in diameter but some visible ovality. Typically the ring ends are precisely cut to meet squarely. I'm not sure how you can ensure that's the case if you file the ends of the oversized rings.

To what extent are you concerned with the piston rocking or moving around in the bore with it being worn? My guess is you're just kicking the can down the road...a bit!

Kurt in S.A.

I'd had the privilege to use a ring-filing tool in the past. This would be a manual version:



I tried to recreate that with found objects--see the pic of my drill with a grinding stone. Yes, I used the sides of the stone.

Parallelosity was an issue. It would have been nice if the stone was thinner.

[cadcap2]

The "windjammer" is a Luftmeister, some say is a stolen design. I've been behind both, but it's been a long time since I was behind a Windjammer...I like the Lutfy currently on my /7. I think the "flap" in the fairing opening was called a Dryper...I've got one of those around somewhere.

Kurt in S.A.

I read in a magazine that Craig Vetter sold the rights to his design to Luftmeister who continued to produce them after Vetter's fairing business folded.

[Kurt in S.A.]

I read in a magazine that Craig Vetter sold the rights to his design to Luftmeister who continued to produce them after Vetter's fairing business folded.

I don't think that's totally correct...probably mixing things up. I recently heard from Duane Ausherman about this who worked with Craig Vetter during this time period. He said that Matt Capri of Butler & Smith was part of the stealing of the design of the Windjammer from Craig. As a separate deal, Craig sold the company to another person and that person ended up cheating him badly and that person ended up going to jail for some of his business practices.

Kurt in S.A.

[gspd]

Melville - The thought of you using a grinder on those rings sent shivers through my spine.
Too large a gap will burn oil, too small a gap (or no gap) will cause seizure.
Rough ends will score the cylinder.
And this has to all be calculated into an imperfect bore.

Hope it runs forever.

from Classic Bike 07-13
Rick Parkington says (+1):

[Jeff in W.C.]

Reprinted without permission

Your secret is safe with me. I know nothing.

[melville]

if I can get away from my pillion, who is coming back tonight after over 2 months away. She wants to ride again, so it should be an easy sell.

Yeah, between that and the rain and painting the shop, not much progress. Here's what I did the day she came back, before the plane landed:

I rejugified and gave it a plugs-out spin to verify oil to all four rockers. Good on the left side:



But not quite there on the right:



I'd spent enough time on my knees at that point and I moved on to the valve covers, first cleaning them up:



And applying some paint:



I left the paint to cure a couple weeks and came back to it to do this:



Then it was time to mount the VC on the correct (!!) side:



Once that was done, I returned to the right side to see about getting oil to the exhaust rockers. A little clean-up and reinstall and this was the result:



My pillion came over for a bit and set up a chair near my work area to read a book, trying on the idea that she might do stuff in my space while I'm doing stuff in my space. My space will soon look like this:



I'd show you the floor, but it's still a mess with dropcloths and paint supplies everywhere.

She's getting some of it for her art, right next to the moto service section. Yes, there's too much light. The city will be inspecting and signing off on it next week.

[melville]

A couple days' progress now. Yesterday I assembled the plug wires. Starting with these pieces and some metal core wire:



I think this is the Belden part number if you're ever at NAPA and the Gen Z counter help asks, "What's the VIN for that?":



There's a guy at my local NAPA who will actually look in the big parts books for stuff. He's about my age........ He'll factor into this post in a bit.

A little hot molten metal magic:



And we get Left Upper:



All installed:



Moving forward to today, I'd installed the aux lights a while ago and tested them on the incomplete bike and all seemed well. Then a little bit ago I set the static ignition timing while the jugs were still off, and when I was done the aux lights were flickering on and off. Even with the key off. Now indeed, the aux light install was in fact the last thing I dicked with and I checked my work all over to see if I'd put a short in the signal to the relay but everything seemed good. I figured $20 for a relay would be an OK test, so I found my guy over to NAPA and asked him if he was up for an adventure. He was! He came close enough--here are the schematics for the new relay on the left and the old one on the right:



The new relay is an 'either/or' switch and the old one is a 'both' switch. So I doubled up the park lights and the headlight on the relay. This won't be a problem because I don't have a park light position on the ignition key. If I did, the park lights would backfeed the headlight so you'd get headlight on when you only wanted park lights. Like so:



Once that was sorted, it was time to get the induction and exhaust back on the bike. Nothing special to share, except for the crossover pipe. When I first diddled with the exhaust, one ear broke off on each side of the crossover, like this:



I ended up leaving the headpipes on anyway and the crossover was rusted enough to the headpipes that the lack of clamping wasn't a problem. But this time the headers were off and the crossover was now not rusted to the headpipes. So I cut off the remaining ear and ground it smooth:



It's back together with hose clamps. Functional! Not pretty, though.

Feeling good about all that, I put the tank back on, hooked the battery back up, filled the floats and set the choke, and I got this:

https://youtu.be/R1beO-cWWJA

Something is exciting the electronic tach and cutting power to the starter. Not sure what at this point. I disconnected the power wire to the coil and got the motor to turn over, but only once. I also disconnected the signal wire to the tach and it persisted in its excitement. It's presently set up with a Dyna single fire ignition that I've used for 9 years and more than 30K miles on Ernst. By single fire ignition, I mean there is no wasted spark. The coils are 12V, wired in parallel, one for each side. On Ernst I'd used VW 12V coils that were a precise fit in the BMW coil brackets. Edgar has, as you see in the pix above, genuine Dyna dual output coils wired similarly but with the addition of the Dyna tach adaptor to send a signal to the tach. I would appreciate any input!

[melville]

Quick update--it's ALWAYS the connections! I cleaned up the prongs on the starter relay, shoved it back in, and NANAVROOOOOMMMM!

I didn't immediately suspect it because it's been working fine all along, from when I first tried starting the bike and all summer when I was riding it, and even just a few days ago when I was checking oil flow to the rockers. It was one of the very few things electrical that I hadn't dicked with.

New ring break-in and riding reports to come!

[melville]

All right, the 50 mile report!

No oil leaks.

Running strong--most of what I'm doing is accelerating and decelerating from 2K to 5K and back to 2K rpm in the gears to break in the new rings. It has some pull! With no changes to the carb settings, it was idling a bit higher (1100ish v 800ish) than it did before but there's a tiny chance the ignition setting is different.

It fires up almost instantly. NANAVROOM where it had been NANANANANANAVVVVVRRRRROOOOOMMM.

Today I did a compression check. 130 psi on the left and 140 psi on the right. With the old rings, 125 was the best I saw.

I'll do a valve clearance check and retorque soon, then a proper carb sync after that. In a couple hundred miles, I'll drop the break-in oil and hopefully call it good from there.

On to the farkling after that!