Well, it's been a while, the bike is done, but not without having to sort a few issues.
Bike ran well on its first start. Apart from a side stand nut falling off close to home after the first ride (I heard it drop on the pavement as I wheeled the bike into the garage), the clutch adjusting nut also managed to work itself off the GB shaft, resulting in a clutchless ride home No biggy.
First real issue was a leaking head gasket. I replaced the .75mm with a 1.mm from AN. Problem solved, or so I thought.
While I had the head off, I decided to professionally ceramic coat the barrels, since I wasn't happy with my DIY paint job. The guy that did the frame powder did a good job, first soda blasting the barrels then, ceramic coating them in semi gloss.
While putting the barrels back on, I managed to destroy a set of rings. No probs, there was a spare set of Hastings .020 over in the spares box.
I installed the head and started to torque up the head bolts. Unfortunately, I failed to check the threads - some soda blasting compound had found its way into the barrel threads and I stripped a 3/8 thread in the head.
It all came off and waited for 3/8 x 26 helicoils to be sent from the UK and the engineering shop to do the work once they arrived.
The head was reinstalled and all was good. The helicoils held torque on the CNW ARP bolt kit nicely.
On the first ride after the fix, oil spewed from the barrels where the oil return hole of the barrels meets the bottom end.
I lifted the barrels with the head still in place. Found that the base gasket had broken at the exact point where it goes around the the oil return hole.
After reading on here that some guys don't use a base gasket, I decided to go with Permatex high temp gasket goo and omit the base gasket.
Reassembly went smoothly, and the first ride seems to have sorted this issue. There was a lot of traffic on the island today. Some drug gangs have been apparently warring over territory with 3 car bombs either killing or seriously 5 people in the last 6 months. The ride was longer than expected as the main road into where I live was closed and I had to ride around to get home the long way.
I'll retorque every thing tomorrow am, set the gaps and take it for another ride.
Lots of lessons learned especially "check everything" especially after you get parts back from others.
Glad its done. Well, they are never done, but we all know that.
That work doesn't seem like that much, but has taken more time than I expected i.e. I've been sorting these issues since Oct last year.
Will post some pics of the bike back in its Roadster clothes shortly as the new tank and side covers were so nice that I couldn't wait and put them on my other bike.
