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Kids are spy's and parrots, you can be sure of that. I'll tell my granddaughter something knowing it Will get back to my daughter. When she brings it up I smile and say "it still works." Revenge is sweet.
Steve

Man Ed this is a tremendous job with such limited space and resources, absolutely love it! You are truly blessed to have a wife and daughter that will at least tolerate you doing this inside, not something I could do in my space due to my son's unique circumstances and needs but really think this is awesome! Keep up the good work and you are doing one helluva job, will be following with interest!



Brett

While waiting for my parts, I decided to do further housekeeping.
I wanted to do something about my starter, as it was just looking grungy and sad, and it would certainly look horrible in a fresh motor...


Cracked it open for inspection and found that bearings were in good shape, as well as commutator with no shorts or opens
The brushes were well worn, so this rebuild was definitely worth it.



Emery cloth left the contact surfaces clean and shiny..., soap and water took all the brush dust away, a fresh coat of paint made things look shiny!

Sacrifized a coat hanger in order to make a "brush holder tool" so that assembly would go by easier


All Assembled and ready to go into its new (old) home






I also spent a good deal of the weekend polishing my covers.
It's sad to see how neglect and corrosion result on pitted aluminum. I have opted in re-using every cover of this bike so that it bears the scars of its previous life (and because I'm cheap! ), as a reminder to myself to keep it out of the elements and in a cared-for environment.


Most covers have all shined up pretty well (sample below), with exception of the ignition cover, which I ended up painting black.

April update.
Well... i finally had the funds available to send my head to PitStopPerformance for a valve-job, but was dealt bad news by Joe.
Seems that one of the valve guides slips in and out of its place, and an oversize valve guide will just not cut it...
In addition to the valve guide issue, the valve seats are badly corroded, which also leads to corroded valves... not good...

This comes as no surprise judging by the condition of my top end, so it was a scenario I had considered.
On the flip end, I was able to source a really good cylinder head off a '95 from Fleabay...!
After shipping and handling it comes up to half of what I would've spent on the valve job. I will lap valves and replace the seals on this one should my guides be in good shape... wish me luck!!!

Luck.
Steve

Best of luck Ed!
Judging by the quality of work and die-hard desire you've been showing us here, you'll be successful with this head coming in.
I had a very similar experience with my KZombie and resorted to an online auction deal too. I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived to see it was exactly as shown on that weBay site. I reckon that's part of the process. Set your expectations low and they may very well be exceeded

Good Luck, Ed, your original head looked in sorry shape, like it was pulled out of the Ocean, I'm sure you'll be a lot better off with the 95 head,
Pete

haha I agree.
Never had high hopes for that ball o' rust!

pete greek1 wrote: Good Luck, Ed, your original head looked in sorry shape, like it was pulled out of the Ocean, I'm sure you'll be a lot better off with the 95 head,
Pete

First of May update.
Well, I finally made some headway on the project. My head arrived so I decided to prepare for it by finally installing my pistons and cylinders.

Pistons installed!


I then was faced with the dilemma of installing the cylinders. I had three options:

1. Try to slide the rings into the cylinders by hand
2. Spend $80 bucks on spring compressors
3. Be a cheapskate and design my own spring compressors

Soooooooooo...................... I Obviously chose the latter...!

I had to sacrifice a three ring binder in order to harvest my ring compressor strips


I then took a quick trip to the home depot in order to buy four hose clamps.


Which I proceeded to install on top of my rings:


And every piston

After lots of cussing #*&*$&%##%$ , re-adjusting, griping and complaining my cylinder was installed... all pistons went in smoothly with the exception of #1 which kept popping out, most likely caused due to "manufacturing imperfections" on my ring compressors...

It was then time to turn my attention to my fleabay head...
Removed and tagged ancillaries



And then it was time to disassemble the valves...
For this I also went the cheapskate way, re-purposing a piece of PVC


And marrying to a large c-clamp to make a super-sophisticated valve-spring compressor




After inspection I found that most of the surfaces were quite acceptable with the exception of one exhaust valve which may need to be ground. I will have a better idea once everything is cleaned and I have the opportunity to take a better look at all my components.
The remainder of my weekend was dedicated to cleaning the head, which is not an easy feat in a kitchen sink


More updates to come! (hopefully)