LOOMING LARGE

At last I have removed 99% of the wiring loom from my donor Moto Guzzi, only the rectifier and wiring to rear light cluster remain in place. It don't look much, but it was a bit like removing the entrails from a carcass, not something that I have ever done, so it's probably nothing like it at all, but it was all entwined around the frame.

There it is lying on the garage floor along with the clutch cable and instruments, I hope with all necessary labels still attached, which will help me to eventually instal it in the car.

I imagine that there will be plenty of shortening and lengthening of the cables to get it to fit neatly, but as long as I rejoin pink to pink etc. fingers crossed there shouldn't be to many faults.

OF COLLETS AND COLLARS

Ooh, I have two followers now, it's good to know that my kitcar adventure maybe of interest to others. I have also had a 'comment' on my last post, from Peter, I have had a look at the pics of his finished car and it is superb, I only hope that when I eventually finish mine it looks half as good.

I took advantage of a dry, bright morning to set up my workmate in the front of the garage to take advantage of good light. Carefully using sharp chisels I removed the firmly stuck cylinder/base gasket, it is important to keep the blade absolutely flat to the surface to prevent scoring and eventually all trace was removed.

Next job was to remove the valves from the heads. I have a choice of three valve spring compressors and it was my old standard black one that did the job. Initially the springs wouldn't compress as the split collets were stuck in the collars, a small socket placed over the top of the valve stem and an extension bar, when tapped with a mallet unstuck the collets and the valves removed. Everything was washed off with paraffin, dried and again carefully stored in the correct order..

The fourteen allen headed screws, not forgetting the four bolts that held the sump pan to the crankcase, were removed and the pan dropped down. I had remembered to drain the oil first, always a messy job, but it didn't take too much mopping up afterwards. The oil filter was removed and the pan then washed with paraffin and dried. The next day it was all packed up and along with the carbs, it was delivered to Dave at  TSR Vapour Blasting at Sevenoaks, who said it should all be ready for collection in a week.

In the meantime I visited Corsa Italiana at Walton on Thames and returned with a full set of gaskets. a smart set of conical air filters for the carbs and smart braided oil lines to replace the tatty ones between timing cover and heads. I also ordered a polished aluminium alternator cover. I can't wait to start putting it all back together.

TOPS OFF

I feel that on this posting I will more than make up for not having my camera available for the last one. Firstly there follows a couple of pics showing off the shiny crankcase and gearbox.

Now it was time to remove the heads and cylinders and the first difficulty appeared, the side chassis rails fouled access to the spark plugs and it would be necessary to remove these to get at one of the head nuts that lay beneath the spark plug. On the left side I could just slide in the plug socket and using the 1/2 in drive with a spanner I was able to loosen and then remove the plug. On the right side this wasn't possible and the engine would have to be tilted up at the front to access the plug.

A socket applied to the alternator securing nut allowed me to turn the engine over so that the relevant valves were in the closed position before loosening the head nuts.

I could now remove all the head nuts on the left side, one of which was an allen key headed nut that was hidden under a really tight cap, both of which took some serious shifting.

 The rocker gear and push rods were lifted out and placed in an orderly manner on my bench. I decided to loosen all the accessible nuts on the right side before tilting the engine, so that I could safely use maximum leverage on the stubborn nuts. The engine crane was again deployed and with the weight of the engine taken, the front bolt was removed and the engine tilted just enough to remove the plug and nut from the right side. When it was time to lift off both heads and cylinders I realised that if I hadn't have tilted the engine I would not have been able to have got them off as they would also have fouled the chassis side rails, all worked out well in the end.

These items were laid out on my work bench, to await valve removal and de-oiling, but on initial inspection,the inside of the cylinders and the pistons looked to be score free and in good health.

With both pistons now exposed the engine was then gently lowered and re secured in the chassis. Next job is to drain the oil from the sump and then remove the sump cover, which will, along with the heads, cylinders and carbs be taken for  professional cleaning, but that's enough for today.

THE SHINING 2

I'm useless! In my keenness to get out to the garage and get to work I keep forgetting to take the camera, so apologises no photos of this bit.

I decided it was time to clean up the crankcase and gearbox and the best way to do this was to haul the engine out off the chassis and rest it on my workmate. I plugged all the open orifices to prevent dirt getting into the engine and went to work with my electric drill, driven assortment of wire brushes, within a few hours work the old bubbled paint and crud was removed. My Dremel, with a variety of small brushes got into all of the nooks and crannies and I now have a shiny engine.

I lifted the engine down to ground level and liberally sprayed it with water soluble de-greaser which I brushed vigorously before hosing it off. I dried the engine using the compressor air line and then lifted it back into the chassis. My £130 engine lift is definitely proving to be one of my better cheap purchases.

I will soon remove the heads, cylinders, and sump and together with the carbs I will take them to www.tsrvapourblasting.co.uk in Sevenoaks, for cleaning. They recommend, ACF-50 a compound which is used in the aviation industry to prevent corrosion, this is apparently ideal for keeping that just blasted look on aluminium cases and I will be using this to hopefully keep the engine sparkling.

THE SHINING

I love to polish, sad person that I am, I liked to keep my canal boat nice and shiny and now I have plenty of opportunity to satisfy my craving.

I have devised a plan in respect of making my Moto Guzzi engine look presentable. The rocker covers are already polished, although they don't look like it, but the left hand one has now been brought back to a respectable shine, but still more work required. My WorkMate mounted polishing wheel did the hard work and the photos show the comparison between the two covers.

 

The front chain cover is sand casted and had been painted over as is the rest of the engine, but as it is proudly on display I thought I would try and polish it. I started with the angle grinder and electric drill with abrasive flap wheels, these removed the paint and much of the casting roughness. Hand rubbing with 80 grade sandpaper followed by 120 and a fine pointed mini grind stone on my Dremel in the corners, got it fairly smooth. Emery paper was next, using various grades, down to 600 before my drill mounted polishing brushes took over. The photo was taken after a trial polish and I can start to see my reflection, but it's hard work and I ended with sore thumb and fingers tips, but worth it. The masking tape is wrapped around the alternator to keep the dust out of it, having removed the black plastic cover. fortunately a polished aluminium one is available and that's a must.

For the rest of the engine, the deeply finned cylinders and head, I will remove and send away, along with the carburetters for vapour blasting, there is a company in Sevenoaks that specializes in this work. As for the rest of the crankcase and gearbox, I don't want or need to strip out the internals so vapour blasting is not an option, so I will wire brush the crud off and simply respray with aerosol engine paint.

I've had another couple of hours polishing the chain cover and I'm pretty happy with it now, although I'm equally sure I will continually go back and polish it. I think the above photo does show the improvement and the other picture shows the tools involved.

WHEELIE TYRED

My local tyre supplier did me proud, £10 to remove the old tyre and fit and balance the new one, maybe that was because they were interested in what I was doing and asked that I drop by and show them the finished car in due course.

Back in my garage, I greased the final drives splined cog that connects to the wheel and rolled the wheel under the chassis. As the car is on trestles it's quiet a long way up from the ground to the final drive so I passed a strap over the top frame rail and down and around the rim of the wheel, as I shortened the strap it pulled the wheel up to the right level and with a bit of jiggling the wheel connected to the drive box.

The axle rod was also greased, passed through the hole in the swing arm, on through the brake back plate and into the wheel. A tap with the rubber mallet had the other end of the rod protruding out of the drive box awaiting its big domed nut. Everything tightened up and job done.

However the back plate will eventually be replaced with a new one designed to take not only the main brake caliper but a handbrake caliper.

IT FITS

What service, the day after the order being placed, the tyre ordered from Longstone Classic Tyres was delivered on Thursday. Complete with inner tube and rim tape brilliant. It is much slimmer than the Bridgestone Battleaxe bike tyre, but with the flat profile more rubber will actually be in contact with the tarmac. Just need to get it all down to the fitter sometime and then I will Ebay the old, but good condition Bridgestone bike tyre

Early last Friday morning the crane was unloaded from the car and bolted back together again and the engine was easily lifted out of the car and deposited in the front of the garage. There would be no time to do anything more until Monday, but that would come around soon enough.

First job on Monday was to suspend the engine over the oil tray and give it a good wash with paraffin, a following wipe down, showed that like the rear wheel hub, there are areas where the paint has blistered off, mainly on the crank case, cylinder and head. I will have to devise a plan, as sadly it is not presentable in its existing state, but plenty of time for that.

What I did next was to trial fit the engine to the chassis. The crane gently lowered the engine into place and the front bolt slipped in easily, a little lower and the rear bolt holes were lined up. The right hand hole in the chassis had to be opened up a tad with a file before the bolt could be persuaded to go all the way through, IT FITS hooray. The bike bolts are too long, but I have checked that 150 and 220 mm long x 12mm high tensile bolts are available and when I know what other bolts I will need for the front suspension, I will order these. In the meantime the engine can stay there whilst other jobs are attended to,