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CHAPTER TWO -10
The first thing I
wanted to get back in was the engine, for this I had to visit Chris
Smith of Speedway Motorcycles in the backwaters of Catford in South
London. The main
part of rebuilding the engine had been done sometime earlier; Crankshaft
balanced, the main bearing removed and replaced with roller bearings,
that sort of work.
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I was
expecting to find the engine sat on a box somewhere in the shop
all shining and ready for me to take away, but no, I was
politely told to get my arms into the bead blaster and start
blasting those heads, “who’s heads are they” I asked, “yours yer
fool” came back. My engine, which I thought would be sparkling,
was still in bits on the bench. So off I went, spending the day
helping Chris reassemble my engine, and just look at those
heads, clean or what!
I must say
that it is quite enjoyable using a bead blaster on dirty metal,
you can see the dirt being shot away and leave a bright, clean
surface.
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It took all of the day
to finish assembling the engine and get the timing right, but at 7.30 in
the evening I drove away with the engine in the boot of the car.
It will be interesting
to see how the engine performs, as the chap who owned it before me not
only polished the outside of the engine but also polished every surface
on the crankshaft, inside the crankcase and everywhere he could get the
polisher. The inside of the engine looks like a mirror, so we shall see
if it makes a difference.
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I had a hard
enough job getting the engine out of the frame so I thought that
it would be far easier to hang the engine in mid air on the
hoist and fit the frame round the engine. I was of course
assuming the frame was lighter than the engine, wrong, I think
it is almost the same weight!
By the time I
moved the frame around a few times my arms felt like falling
off, but after several times nearly dropping the frame,
eventually the engine nicely dropped into place and was quickly
secured by pushing the mounting bolts into place.
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I have made a wooden
structure to bring the bike up to an easy working level, the worst thing
is having to kneel down and trying to work. When the bike is complete I
can lift the whole thing off with the hoist.
I think that fitting
the engine was the hardest part about the reassembly, I had be very
careful not to scratch the paintwork, to help this I placed water pipe
lagging over the paintwork to protect it from knocks, etc. this worked
very well and there was not a scratch anywhere.
You get a great
feeling of achievement when you know that the hardest part is done and
finished without any accidents, I only hope the rest goes according to
the same plan.
The next part was of
course to get the main drive in place; it is much easier to get the
drive in when there is nothing else around to obstruct it. |
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