my blue 67 dream engine restoration/rebuild!
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 3:48 pm
hello all!
this is to be a log of my rebuild of a 67 305 dream engine.
the back story:
i have had my 1978 suzuki gs 750 for about 8 years now, and i love it. great, reliable bike. a little TOO reliable....last year i found myself in search of a project. the wife and i had taken a msf course together, i told her it would make her a better passenger....my ulterior motive was this: teach her to ride, get her hooked, she will no longer be content to ride backseat, so, of course, a 2nd bike will have to be procured! the plan worked perfectly, we were shopping around for a bike, when she went and got herself pregnant. the bike went to the back burner, my search turned from looking for a reliable runner into looking for more of a project.
i had just about given up looking for a while, everything i looked at needed either too much work or cost too much money. then, on our way home from looking at yet another pos 30 year old bike, she got a call from her friend who mentioned in passing that her dad was trying to sell his bike, might we be interested? well, the wife had seen this bike before and TOTALLY FALLEN IN LOVE WITH IT, telling me that if it was ever for sale, we would buy it. and here it was!
so, a parting of cash later, it was ours. i rode it around a bit, shaking her out making sure everything was as it should be. well, in the process of going thru things, (cleaning carb, adjusting valves, cleanup, etc) i discovered the l cylinder not firing correctly. a compression test verified low (like 30 psi cold!) numbers. so, the dream got parked for a while to give me time to finish up some other projects.
well, 2 days ago, i started to dive in! the engine now resides in my basement.
the plan is to disassemble and restore the engine this spring, in the hopes to get the dream back on the road for the summer riding season.
i have been this far into an engine before, and i am sure i will have lots of stupid questions. i do have the bill silver manuals, as well as a clymer manual.
where it stands so far:
the top end is apart. 2 broken rings in the left cylinder! that might explain the low compression, eh?! the cylinder walls dont look majorly damaged, so that much is good.
a few initial questions:
gasket sets. go with the nos kits on ebay or an aftermarket kit? i know with my suzuki there have been some quality issues with non-oem stuff.....any opinions?
measuring the cylinder bores.....use one of those little expandable rod thingys (bore gauge?) then use a mic to measure that? pretty sure that is how you do it, but, like i said, ive never done this before.....bear with me. any good tutorials out there on how to do this kind of work?
ok, enough boring stuff for now. i will load some photos when i figure out how to do it!
greg
this is to be a log of my rebuild of a 67 305 dream engine.
the back story:
i have had my 1978 suzuki gs 750 for about 8 years now, and i love it. great, reliable bike. a little TOO reliable....last year i found myself in search of a project. the wife and i had taken a msf course together, i told her it would make her a better passenger....my ulterior motive was this: teach her to ride, get her hooked, she will no longer be content to ride backseat, so, of course, a 2nd bike will have to be procured! the plan worked perfectly, we were shopping around for a bike, when she went and got herself pregnant. the bike went to the back burner, my search turned from looking for a reliable runner into looking for more of a project.
i had just about given up looking for a while, everything i looked at needed either too much work or cost too much money. then, on our way home from looking at yet another pos 30 year old bike, she got a call from her friend who mentioned in passing that her dad was trying to sell his bike, might we be interested? well, the wife had seen this bike before and TOTALLY FALLEN IN LOVE WITH IT, telling me that if it was ever for sale, we would buy it. and here it was!
so, a parting of cash later, it was ours. i rode it around a bit, shaking her out making sure everything was as it should be. well, in the process of going thru things, (cleaning carb, adjusting valves, cleanup, etc) i discovered the l cylinder not firing correctly. a compression test verified low (like 30 psi cold!) numbers. so, the dream got parked for a while to give me time to finish up some other projects.
well, 2 days ago, i started to dive in! the engine now resides in my basement.
the plan is to disassemble and restore the engine this spring, in the hopes to get the dream back on the road for the summer riding season.
i have been this far into an engine before, and i am sure i will have lots of stupid questions. i do have the bill silver manuals, as well as a clymer manual.
where it stands so far:
the top end is apart. 2 broken rings in the left cylinder! that might explain the low compression, eh?! the cylinder walls dont look majorly damaged, so that much is good.
a few initial questions:
gasket sets. go with the nos kits on ebay or an aftermarket kit? i know with my suzuki there have been some quality issues with non-oem stuff.....any opinions?
measuring the cylinder bores.....use one of those little expandable rod thingys (bore gauge?) then use a mic to measure that? pretty sure that is how you do it, but, like i said, ive never done this before.....bear with me. any good tutorials out there on how to do this kind of work?
ok, enough boring stuff for now. i will load some photos when i figure out how to do it!
greg
