Hello all,
I wanted to introduce myself and get acquainted. I recently picked up a 1963 Dream 250 which I think is the early model judging by the shape of the fuel tank. It hasn't run since 1972 so fortunately it was stored inside. Even so, it had froze up and now I have torn into it and have some questions about the next step. The head and cylinders came apart fairly easy, though I did have to beat on it for an hour or so. The only rust to be seen is on the top half of the frozen cylinder and piston rings. The rust on the cylinder doesn't look too bad, as in not pitted. Do you think I would regret just honing the cylinders, getting new rings and seals and trying to make it run? Or should I go all out and get new sleeves, pistons etc.? Interestingly the pistons say 2.00 on them so I don't know if I could get anything bigger. I think I would need new sleeves. Thanks for your help, and I look forward to seeing my dream run again.
Aaron
New to this forum and old HondasHi nice find and welcome to the forum.
I guess it depends on your budget as to what you might want to do. If the pitting isn't too bad as you say, and the pistons look good, I'd probably do as you suggested and just hone the cylinders and install new rings. Any idea how many miles are on the engine? While you have the top end apart, it would be worth looking to see how the valves are sealing, inspect the cam and rocker faces for wear/pitting, etc. Also it isn't a whole lot of work to split the case halves to check out the transmission. The only thing that you'll need to reassemble it is some Hondabond for sealing the halves back together. Jethro The odometer reads 14377 but due to the oversize pistons, It seems to have been rebuilt at some time. The cam looks good and I haven't found any other damage internally. The combustion chambers are covered with carbon and I will have to decide what to do with the head.
I am curious about the tranny gears because it would only go into 1st and 2nd sitting still. Is it normally easy to hit all the gears if the bike is not running? I am also looking for rings of that size and not finding them yet. Anybody know whre I might find some rings for +2.00 pistons? This is a great forum, and I really appreciate the help. Right on.
Haven't heard of that one. For the head, remove the cam so that the all the valves are closed and install the spark plugs. Turn the head upside down so the chambers are facing upward. Then fill the chambers with gas so that the valves are covered. After a while, look in the exhaust and intake ports to look for gas leaking past the valves. If no gas, then I'd say reassemble and reinstall. If there is a little gas, then lap the valves into the seats and try the gas trick again and see if that helped. With the tranny, it probably wouldn't shift into all 4 just sitting. the engine/tranny would have to rotate to get it into all 4. But first and second sounds about right. Good luck and let us know how it goes/ Jethro Jethro and Rider,
It's been quite awhile (68) since I worked on one of these engines but if I remember correctly once the head is off you can just remove the shafts and rockers, no need to remove the cam to do the leak check. I may be completely wrong but it is easier than pulling the cam. Rider welcome to the forum, Cliff
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
