DIY..... its cheaper

Got "Y" at my filter nothing at the engine No on the GTS
been out around the borders withe DUN and SDC for a blast
 
Painfully slow progress but work comes first....

Forks are now polished and stanchions on their way to be hard chromed at Philpots.



a few bits stripped and etch primed. the shocks are already silver but the whole lot spent an 90 mins in the oven together at 150c.



Managed to pick up an excellent set of Koni dial-a-rides so may not use the stradas. Also found a supply of Strada rebuild kits again so ordered 3 sets of them as well :)
 
yes I was going to ask about the lettering too... although bit late now as i paid someone to do mine :o
 
No great mystery. Use a different paint for the letters so as not to activate the base colour so the Black is Acrylic and the orange enamel, neither which will effect the other. Splurge the orange in to the recessed letters leave for about 30 seconds and wipe with a cloth :-)

I was going to get the swingarm polished but i'm thinking it will be a nightmare with an oily chain running over it so it will be black again i think :)
 
Absolutely Derek, brilliant book.

Pulled the heads off smokey the Darmah today.....hmmmmmmm the plot thickens. Inlets 42 exhaust 38. Presumably these must be mille valves ? Wonder what the cams are ? watch this space. :)
 
strated work on the heads, just cleaning basically. Valves and seats are good, guides seem fine but oil seals are shot. I have ordered some VITON seals from Nigel (Laceys) which should do the trick.



I haven't found the reason for the smoky pot yet so i will pull the barrels off tomorrow and have a look inside :), first galance says the bores are good, no noticable lip at the top so i will make sure i have a cloth under the barrel before i pull it off so if a piece of oil control ring drops out it doesn't disappear inside the engine.



Thank god someone did some cleaning on this before, it means the coke does not stick to the polished metal and makes life so much easier later on.



Valves will need re seating, all the seats show signs of blowing as does the front head to barrel seal. probably a symptom of incorrect shimming on desmo's Cant spend too much time getting these heads set up right.
I dont see a lot of point in splitting the crankcases at this stage as it was running fine before i started. I dont really want to make work at this stage and TBH is so easy to drop/remove the engine on these if there is a problem i will just tackle it later. Thankfully the cams are stock so it looks like its just had a set of Mille 1000 valves fitted which is not unusual. I say thankfully because while i have no problem with blueprinting these engines or even improving air flow i dont agree with tuning unless its done from the ground up. the weak point is always the crank so unless you start there the rest will just cause trouble quite quickly IMHO.
I think a lot of people who want more power out of these engines never have them set up to optimum in the first place, well seated valves, dialed in cams , accurate ignition and correctly jetted and tuned carbs can transform the ride without stressing the engine further.
Starting to rabbit a bit now so i will shut up :)
 
Looks like you have nice new exhaust thread inserts too. Cam looks really good.

Is it the 'O ring seal inside the guide' type or top hat later type (with matching rockers)? Or to put the question another way, is the reason it is smoking because someone has fitted later guides & seals without grinding the rockers to clear? With the result being the oil seal has been ripped off & 'digested' by the engine, allowing oil to flow down the guide and be burnt off.
 
Interestingly the rear cylinder has o rings in the guides and the front had torn seals on the top of the guides..........but its the rear cylinder that smokes :) I suspect the o rings are hard but i also expect to find a ring problem as it does not look like there has been a major leakage down the guides. The undercuts are in all 4 guides for O rings so thats the way to go.
/
 
Well that was easy, quick look at the piston below shows the problem



note the second ring has a small ledge on it ? that should be pointing down.....tut tut.
Upside down ring on the back pot , problem solved .
This is what i was trying to say yesterday about being glad the mods stopped at the valves and not the cams etc. even though the work on porting is good there really is no excuse for getting the rings upside down but it still happens. we all make mistakes but preferably not on a bevel twin especially the price people charge to work on them !!!
 
Vacant Possession said:
Call yourself an engineer?
Click to expand...

I tried that.....didnt help :)

On a different note i have decided to go with an SS swing arm and not the JMC. I figure with the wrong tank ,seat ,shocks ,fairing etc i am getting too far away from its roots and the SS swing arm and its draw blocks are sort of iconic to the thing i am trying to build....If only i knew what that was :)
 
Well if you have a spare swingarm Paddy, can I try it in my little Capriolo? It would make an interesting contrast to the rest of the pressed steel chassis. Will it take a 2.50 x 18 wheel?

DSC_0472.JPG
 
Glawster said:
Well if you have a spare swingarm Paddy, can I try it in my little Capriolo? It would make an interesting contrast to the rest of the pressed steel chassis. Will it take a 2.50 x 18 wheel?
Click to expand...
Velly intellesting, you dark horse! I just found your original post on this.

Looking forward to seeing more.
 
Wow, looks pretty light!
I thought all bevel frames were very similar - but that's way different to a GTS frame.
 
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