September 2000 - Notes on Project bike 2000

9/20/2000 Well, after a long hot summer when I did absolutely nothing on my project bike, I'm back at it. Tonight I pulled the carbs. My previous project bikes have been v45 sabres, and based on tonight's experience, there are similarities, but also significant differences. In particular, things seem much 'tighter', I guess because it's smaller.

This bike has a yoshimura race exhaust which I'm anticipating will be too loud for my tastes - luckily I have a collector and exhaust pipes from the donor bike - so all I'll need to do is buy mufflers. I'm thinking about buying cobra f1's and would appreciate any input anyone might have. Pictures of the Yosh race exhaust are available here

9/29/2000 - If one picture could tell the story of the condition of the engine in my project, it would be this:

Notice how the 2nd plug looks wrong. Discolored and the bottom part is missing. Good thing I have a replacement engine ready to be installed.

9/30/2000 - I removed the engine and took off the valve covers. What I found wasn't pretty. Half of the rocker arm on the number 4 cylinder is gone. Here's a picture

And another shot, from a different angle, showing the broken rocker arm.

Here's the piston from the cylinder where the bad plug was.

And despite it's appearance, it still moves up and down in the cylinder.

Here's the companion cylinder head...notice the one valve burned through

I found another problem while salvaging other parts from the bad engine. A broken piston.

here's the cylinder with the broken piston

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