Well, this last weekend I thought I should stop procrastinating and do some work on the R65. After all I hand out advice with gay abandon to others so I thought it might be time to practice what I preach.
First item on the agenda was to pull the pots off, the right one I pulled off 20 years ago and removed the piston (photos of a well destroyed piston have featured here previously) and conrod (to check for being bent). The left side has never been off.
To be honest I have been dreading looking inside as I could not remember doing anything in particular to preserve the engine as 20 years ago I regarded it as "buggered" and had no plans to ever put it back together.
To my very great relief I was more conscientious 20 years ago than I remembered, not only was the crank journal covered in a thick smear of grease I had put a pot of "conformal" vapor barrier inside the now empty pot. The conformal has done its job well, not only was the crank in perfect condition and after removing the grease and applying assembly lubrication I put the conrod back on, there was no corrosion on the exposed cam lobes, the cam followers all came out easily (and were assembly lubed and replaced, even the rocker gear worked smoothly and has no corrosion on them. RESULT!
Then came my first annoyance. I grabbed the head I bought from an eBay shyster and looked at it for the first time. This head was sold to me as a 1982 r65 cylinder head, As soon as I turned it over to look at the valves I realized that it is a R45 head.
BTW, if anyone here has need of a RHS R45 head with 32/34 valves it is yours for the price of postage.
In the medium term I have a set of 1980 small valve 34/38 heads for which I also have brand new valves. These will be going on to the 1979 cylinders and pistons I also already have.
In the longer term, if I keep the R65, when it needs a refresh I will buy a RHS late model head 40/36 and a RHS Nickasil pot and (hopefully) one good std weight piston and give the old girl a bit of a performance lift.
I guess that in the short term I may also going to need to buy needles and jets to downgrade the carbs, although as there was only 5hp difference between the small valve and big valve heads I may not need to.
I also finished the electrics, all that I need do now is fit a JPT plug to the ATU to replace the one I broke 20 years ago (failed to observe the wire bale and forced it apart) and it will be ready to run as soon as the heads come back from the machine shop.
Brake wise I am initially fitting a single Brembo caliper, I have as a longer term project acquired a pair of Brembo 4-pot calipers from an R1100 and I will eventually fit those once I decide of I am going to mill the calipers, the forks or both to regain the correct spacing.
Target is to have the thing running and registered by the end of June as I am getting sick of not having something to ride capable of highway speeds.