I posted this past weekend that i had found something in one of my cylinders. I tore down the cyclinders to make sure everything was ok or find out if something needed to be replace. as i was taking the parts off the bike i have a couple of methods for all those nuts, bolts & washers. 1. put them in zip lock bags and label the bag with where the hardware came off of. 2. put the nuts and washers back on studs they came off. 3. lay out a piece of paper and lay the parts on that as long as i know my work space will not be disturbed.
i had learned these little things as i was growning up, i was one of those kids that would take everything apart to see how it worked. i had not learned how to put it back together though to much aggervation to my parents. my dad has always been mechinally inclined. so he decided he would teach me how to take it apart and put it back together and not have extra parts like grandpa would.
Now back to where i was taking off my cylinder heads this weekend. I decided that i would use the put the nuts and washers back on the studs they came off method. I had removed the right head & cyclinder and started to move on to the left. My oldest son came in to my "workshop" (that is a story in its self) to see what i was doing. Elijah has taking up cart racing and has become really interested in building and maintaining his race cart. So he spied the ol' man working on the bike and hoped to get a little lesson and some dad time. how could i say no. so as i started taking off the left cylinder i switched to the lay a big piece of paper out on the floor so he could see everything as it came off. the left cylinder was ok. so with a watchfull eye i let my son put it back together. i was very proud that he was able to do it without any instructions from me.
the reason i pulled the head & cylinder was i had saw something through the spark plug hole. once i figgured out what i had seen and what it may have been from i cleaned the head with a little elbow grease. i then started to put it back together. now i used the put the nuts, bolts & washers back on the studs they came off of on this one. i installed the cylinder, then the head and last the valve cover. wait a second, the valve cover doesnt sit tight? i removed it and looked, made sure i didnt have a push rod pop out and hold anything up, the rockers where ok. what the heck? right in the middle i got a call from work and i had to go pull a unit out of a frozen parking lot.
so a day later i return to figgure out why it is not going back together like it should. spent a hour before work trying to get this worked out. had to go to work! and the day ran long and by the time i got home from a 17 hour day at work i was not ready to work on it again. i just wanted to work on some zzzzzz's
so this morning i went out to work this out again. took the head off the cylinder to look at it again. i finally noticed my mistake! a little washer! the center valve cover washer was still in on the stud. i never removed it before putting on the valve cover and that little washer was thick enough to create a gap.
it is now all back together and ready for the next part of the rebuild. i hope you could enjoy my mistake, sometimes its good to laugh at ones self.
