Shane - Superlite (#43)

We finally had a clear day where neither myself nor Brent had anything except working on bikes lined up. So I dropped the wife in town and headed out.

Got there to find him mowing the lawns. We decided we'd head in to Big Bikes to see the mechanic, Neil, as he knows everything there is to know about working on Triumph's, Ducati's, Aprillia's etc, including race prepping and modifying them. Brent reckoned if there was anyone who'd know if there were any problems with the TT600 to watch out for it'd be Neil. We stopped at the McCafe on the way to Big Bikes and got some coffee's, making sure I had one for Neil as well. Got to Big Bikes to find out that Neil was moving house and had taken the day off (he works Saturdays and takes Mondays off). Bugger. Oh well, at least the guy at the traffic lights washing windscreens got a nice hot coffee for his efforts.

So we moved the rest of the bikes out of the garage so there was enough room to get stuck into Trini. While I started removing everything Brent fiddled with the Bandit because it kept dying randomly. After pulling all the body work, tank and exhaust off, disconnected the radiator and all of the electricals we tackled the tricky task of dropping the motor out without dropping it. This took a fair bit of careful jiggling and checking to make sure nothing was hooked up (we found a couple of things still attached) and eventually had it sitting on the floor under the bike. There seems to have been a lot of thought put into the design of the bike because only 4 tools are needed to remove everything except the engine mounts. A Phillips screwdriver, a flat head screw driver, a 13mm ring spanner and a single Allen key. With those 4 it's possible to remove everything except the wheels and the engine mounts.

After all that hard work we both grabbed a chair and pulled the top off a cold one while we contemplated the next move.

Unfortunately the shape of the sump was choosen for different reasons. It's very, very difficult to sit the engine so that it isn't resting on the sump plug and there's nowhere to jam bits of wood under it to stop it from toppling. Eventually we sorted out something involving 2 mechanical jacks and lots of wood. Once we had it propped up securely on the bench Brent started to open her up while I tidied up the wiring etc so nothing was dragging or getting caught when we moved the chassis around.

Things had gone well so far and we hadn't found any surprises. We did, however, start to worry a bit when we couldn't turn the crank to get to the camchain sprocket bolts. This meant that we were going to have to unbolt the cams and lift them on an angle so that we could get the camchain off. Once we'd done this and had both cams off the crank turned freely. I'd noticed that the cam timing marks weren't quite lined up properly earlier and it looks like one of the pistons was pressing against a valve when we tried to turn the crank. So no big deal. We just need to make sure the valve wasn't bent at all. But even if it had been I've got a spare head with 3 good sets of valves that we could use if needed.

By this stage it was getting a bit late and we'd gotten to the point that I was hoping to get to for the day. The need for food and a desire to get the shed closed up before the sun set and things suddenly got friggen cold meant that was all we were going to do. A quick tidy up and I shot off to get my wife as she would need a ride home after she'd finished at her girlfriends place and I was soon to be incapable of driving. She dropped me back at Brents and he and Karen had decided fish and chips was the go. So Brent shot down the road while Karen and I sat down and got stuck into beer and wine (for her). Brent turned up with a huge pile of greasies and I was wondering if he'd picked up an army on the way home to help eat what he'd bought. We managed to polish off most of it (funny how much you eat after spending the day in the shed and having a few beers) with a bit left over for a fry up the next morning.

So, it was a great day. Didn't ride a bike but the boys were hanging out in the shed, fiddling with bikes, talking shit, drinking piss and getting covered in oil/grease. Wicked

Anyway, it looks like we're going to split the cases and take a look at the bottom end one night this week and figure out what parts we're going to need. At the moment it's going to be new camchain (as a precaution only) and a gasket and seals set. It doesn't look like anything else is needed, but we'll know for sure once split the cases and have a look.

I think the way to go now is to pull the valve gear + guides from the good head and keep them for spares. That way we've got valves with matched guides that could go straight in without any problems. Then pull the guides from the damaged head, weld them up and put the in the good head. Using the busted spark plug to block up the sparkplug hole we'll block off the exhaust port and leave the inlet open. We can remove throttle body three and put throttle body four in it's place (four has the throttle position sensor) which will leave us room to put a catch bottle, which then vents to air through a bit of oil filled type air filter. Plumbing the open inlet on the dead cylinder to the catch bottle should complete it. This way any oil mist accumulates in the catch bottle but the dead cylinder is free of any power sapping pumping resistance.

Once we've got the entire thing back together and proved that it does actually idle (I don't care how rough or gutless it idles, it just has to idle) I'll then grab an old laptop and the software for reprogramming the ECU. I'm really pleased that it's got the Sagem ECU in it as that means I don't have to use a Power Commander and can get maps off the internet or just create my own.

At a later stage we may look at using a bob weight in place of the conrod and piston, enabling us to completely block off the dead cylinder. Bob weights are used when balancing crank shafts and there's a bunch of well known calculations used to figure out exactly how much the bob weight should be. We'll need the services of a mechanical engineer for that, but that's something to think about when the time comes.