After draining the bike's coolant and oil, I set about removing the gas tank, plastic pieces, battery, airbox, carburetor, engine mounts, chain, rear wheel and swingarm. The swingarm forks the engine and the swingarm bolt runs through both of those and into the frame on either side.
Removing the engine I checked engine's compression, 125 psi, which was above the 113 psi that the maintenance manual specifies as a minimum. I replaced the cam chain 1000 miles ago so I moved onto checking and adjusted the valves, which were a little tight. Since I can't weld aluminum, I had the crankcase and subframe welded. I found two small cracks in the subframe during removal.
The engine went back in as planned. I labeled all of the parts removed from the bike and/or screwed bolts back in their holes if possible. Even though the oil pump hadn't been touched, I wanted to make sure the top end was getting oil so I applied electricity to the started to see if oil would dribble on to the top end. Nope.
I put the bike back together in reverse order leaving out the spark plug. The bike would be easier to push without the spark plug and I was going to push start the bike for a while to make sure oil was getting to the top end. Nope.
I screwed the spark plug back in and sprayed oil all around the top end so that I could run the bike for 30 seconds to see if oil was reaching the top end. Once the bike was running oil started gushing on the top end. I bolted up the top end oil line and bleed the cooling system of air.
Once everything was back together I began removing everything that wasn't needed to round a track: plastic, license plate, all lighting and switches that control lighting. In the end I removed 6 pounds.
Comments