- Joined
- Jul 15, 2014
- Messages
- 10
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Hey everyone!
I've been a long time lurker on this great forum and think it's time to start contributing some content.
My name is Steve Adkins and I have a shop called Preservation Cycle, where I primarily focus on Nortons.
I worked for many years at Big D Cycle in Dallas Tx. as the Norton specialist, and have finally decided to get my own shop going.
During my time at Big D I had the great opportunity to help with lots of great projects, including the restoration of the original Sam Wheeler Norton streamliner, for which I built the motor and transmission, and with the restoration of the Dennis Manning double enginestreamliner, which I built the engines for. We also got to help with the sale and delivery of the HogSlayer to the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham England. Around the same time we restored the original Texas Cigar Triumph streamliner which was almost destroyed in the fire the had in 2004. I also had the opportunity to build an SCTA Production Pushrod 750 record holding Commando, which we set the current speed record at Bonneville with. Anyway, enough about my background...
A good customer of mine has a very nice Kenny Dreer VR880 set up in Interstate touring trim. The odometer on the electronic VDO speedo shows over 80,000 miles! I think this is accurate. The bike runs well, but is smoking and leaking badly from the head gasket, as we discovered on a recent trip down the west coast. Time to see what it looks like inside!
Here is the beast in question stripped of its carbs (MKII Amals),exhaust,tank,seat and sidepanels. I should have gotten a shot of it complete, but didn't think of it at the time..I'll post some when it's all done.
Removing the exhaust revealed a badly galled drive side exhaust port thread.
Here is the pipe in question with a bizarre assortment of gaskets and spacers..
Running a thread chaser through the port carefully cleans up the threads..If you look carefully you can see where
the port has had an insert installed to repair previous damage.
Timing side comes out clean and looks good..
Thats as far as I've gotten today, so I will update this once I make some real progress..
Here are a few shots of the brakes and hubs, unique for the VR880. These are actually the second set of rotors. We had a new set made by Kosman when he originally bought the bike, because the first set were so worn that the rear floating rotor actually floated right of its hub! We found that Kosman was the original fabricator of the brakes and had them make some new ones...
Front brake still rusty from the salt air on the Pacific Coast Hwy..
I'll post some more soon..
I've been a long time lurker on this great forum and think it's time to start contributing some content.
My name is Steve Adkins and I have a shop called Preservation Cycle, where I primarily focus on Nortons.
I worked for many years at Big D Cycle in Dallas Tx. as the Norton specialist, and have finally decided to get my own shop going.
During my time at Big D I had the great opportunity to help with lots of great projects, including the restoration of the original Sam Wheeler Norton streamliner, for which I built the motor and transmission, and with the restoration of the Dennis Manning double enginestreamliner, which I built the engines for. We also got to help with the sale and delivery of the HogSlayer to the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham England. Around the same time we restored the original Texas Cigar Triumph streamliner which was almost destroyed in the fire the had in 2004. I also had the opportunity to build an SCTA Production Pushrod 750 record holding Commando, which we set the current speed record at Bonneville with. Anyway, enough about my background...
A good customer of mine has a very nice Kenny Dreer VR880 set up in Interstate touring trim. The odometer on the electronic VDO speedo shows over 80,000 miles! I think this is accurate. The bike runs well, but is smoking and leaking badly from the head gasket, as we discovered on a recent trip down the west coast. Time to see what it looks like inside!
Here is the beast in question stripped of its carbs (MKII Amals),exhaust,tank,seat and sidepanels. I should have gotten a shot of it complete, but didn't think of it at the time..I'll post some when it's all done.
Removing the exhaust revealed a badly galled drive side exhaust port thread.
Here is the pipe in question with a bizarre assortment of gaskets and spacers..
Running a thread chaser through the port carefully cleans up the threads..If you look carefully you can see where
the port has had an insert installed to repair previous damage.
Timing side comes out clean and looks good..
Thats as far as I've gotten today, so I will update this once I make some real progress..
Here are a few shots of the brakes and hubs, unique for the VR880. These are actually the second set of rotors. We had a new set made by Kosman when he originally bought the bike, because the first set were so worn that the rear floating rotor actually floated right of its hub! We found that Kosman was the original fabricator of the brakes and had them make some new ones...
Front brake still rusty from the salt air on the Pacific Coast Hwy..
I'll post some more soon..