Wrenching on the "race" bike

Drinks on me, I'm currently having a Keith's. This is dry reading so you
want to get a double.

So the plan today was to work on the '72 Daytona, which I am planning on
turning into a vintage class race bike, so, having said that for umpteenth
time, I will here out refer to it as "the race bike".

Where was I? Oh yes, the plan today was to work on the race bike. I looked
after the kids yesterday so today was my day to work in the garage. Grizz
had mentioned earlier in the week that he was planning on dropping Babe off
for her MSF course (or Canadian equivalent) and then coming on over to watch
me screw up. I got down there around 9:00am and managed to get the crank in
the timing side case and the cases back together. I'm gonna leave out minor
details like parts cleaning, etc.

The next step was to get the cams in, on the Bonneville the cams need to be
in before the engine cases go together, with the Daytona there's a couple
plates that can be removed to allow the cams to be slid in without splitting
the cases. I started with the exhaust cam, then the plate, then using a
specialty tool I put the timing gear on. I got a little ahead of myself on
the intake cam and had to pull the gear off the cam in order to install the
cam plate before putting the gear. With the cam gears on I put the crank
gear on, so now all that's remaining for the timing side is the idle gear
and the oil pump. All of the nuts need to be torqued down, but I can't do
that until I'm a little further along.

Next I put the pistons on, this was the first time I checked the ring gap,
fairly straight forward process. The bottom of the skirt is the narrowest
part of the cylinder so I set the cylinder upside down on the bench and put
the rings in one at a time and used a feeler gauge to check the gap. The
gap range is .010 to .014, all the rings measured .014. These are 040 over
rings for the .040 pistons I'm using. I changed the dowels in the case
where the cylinder mounts and installed at the studs.

Since every checked out I went ahead and decided to put the cylinder on.
It's at this time I realized I need a couple decent ring compressors. The
Triumphs of the era are vertical twins and the pistons move together, so
I've got to slide the cylinder down over two pistons at once, and doing this
with a couple pipe clamps just ain't cutting it, but I did manage to finally
get them on. With the cylinder on and bolted down I checked the pistons and
they move nice and smooth when turning the crank.

By now it was late afternoon with no sign of Grizz, so I assume something
more interesting then watching me came up. At this point the wife and kids
came home and then shortly after Grizz and a newly licensed Babe showed. We
spent a little time trying to get the chopper started so Grizz could hear it
run but it was being stubborn and a fairly dry gas tank didn't help.

With Grizz there I tackled the tappets and tappet blocks. I may have been
easier to do this before putting the cylinder on, but since I didn't I
messed with it a bit and finally got them both in. I put the idler gear in
and gave the crank a spin and sure 'nough the tappets raised and lowered as
they should. The next step will be the pushrod tubes and head, but I'm
holding off on putting the heads on until I get pipes that fit, and since I
might take the head down to British Cycle Supply to try out something they
may have. With that done I pulled the gearbox out and took a look, needs to
be cleaned up a bit but the innards are looking really good. This is about
as far as I got, Grizz and Babe headed home, I headed upstairs to see the
boys and all in all I got a decent start on the engine.

That's it for now, no digital camera today so no pics to go along with the
rebuild, but helps yourselves to another drink if you managed to get this
far.

--
Tud
AH#115 SENS BS#111 LFS#32 FLF MISFIT
http://ah115.com
"There's only *one* RE."


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