Gonna build a Flying Mile bike

I too hope Smeg knows we love him really so, yes...count me in to watch his 1st run.
PS, can anyone load their scrap iron into his Passat?

 

Made some progress this weekend. Got talking to some of the guys featured in the BBC2 documentary Speed Dreams and some guys on the Oldskoolsuzuki Facebook group, said I was gonna build a flying mile bike for Pendine sands and got some great offers from people I've never met. Drove up to Waltham Cross on Saturday to meet an OSS stalwart called Ian Foxon. Had a brew and drove to his workshop , where we unloaded some goodies from me to him. Main one being a very old, very small, lathe that needed some brackets making and the drive motor mounting to make it work. Once we'd unloaded the Passat and stopped admiring the Katana and EFE in his workshop, we drove to his lockup in Barnet. There, he presented me with a virtually complete GSX1100 engine. It turns out it wasn't just any GSX 1100 engine. It came with a standard EFE cylinder head( bigger valves and ports than the earlier engines). We then went to his mums garage, where he gave me a rusty Harris exhaust system, a Bandit 1200 swingarm and an undamaged ET headlamp unit.
Well today I managed to unload the parts and got to work stripping the engine for cleaning and checking. The good surprises just kept coming!!!




GSX1100ET headlamp and lock up clutch with crankcase extension!



EFE cylinder head!








GSX clutches are known for turning into tambourines and eventually exploding if you put too much power through them. Standard ones are fitted with a helical primary gear which makes it more susceptable to doing this. The solution is fitting straight cut gears to the clutch basket and crankshaft, a billet backplate and welding the rivet heads to the backplate. This has already been done. A mod costing approx. £300!!!



Another race mod is to swap the GSX1100 oil pump gears for GS750 gears to make the pump turn faster and provide more oil for cooling. This had already been done!



Have removed the head and block and will be splitting the cases very soon to clean out all the oilways and give the crankshaft and gearbox a good check over before rebuilding it.

 

Got a lot of cleaning and checking to do first Tom. Gotta buy some crankcase gasket gloop, at £40 a tube !!!

 

Yep, that oughta do it !

 

Good thread Alan, keep the pictures coming

 

Will do Paul.

 

Will do mate.

 

Found a bit of time to split the engine today and have a look inside. Started by removing head and block, alternator and ignition covers. Then remove anything inside the engine that stopped the top and bottom halves being seperated. At the back of the clutch are a couple of retaining plates that need removing and another one that needs the oil ways blasting through with degreaser and compressed air.





Then it was time to remove all the M6 and M8 bolts from first the top half


.
Then the bottom half.



The engine is normally split with the top half upside down on the bench, retaining the crankshaft and gearbox in place.

Next job was remove the fabricated sump and undo the main bearing bolts hidden inside. Note; the sump fabricator has put his initials in there, a good sign.




sump filter was nice and clean. Also housing modified for racing.


Removed the last two M8 main bearing bolts and tried to seperate the two halves. No joy!!! Did anyone spot the deliberate mistake?

Look at the right hand side of the gearbox? Yep, left an M6 allen bolt in there!!!! Removed it, flipped engine over, couple of taps with a mallet and voila!



Found one slightly galling problem when I split the casings. A small piece of loose aluminium in the top half.





It's the cam chain guide holder, but I can fix or replace it. Other than that, all looks pretty good.

 

I found another deliberate mistake! You miss-spelled 'seperate' which should have been 'sepArate'. Do I get a prize? . And (while I'm being annoying) I don't follow why you think the crankcase fabricator managing to score his initials into the metal is a Good Sign: maybe he had begun his shopping list? Or was about to carve a heart with someone else's initials. Maybe the letters stand for 'Generally Robust' or in other words, may fail somewhere else!

Seriously, though, I love the thread. It's really exciting to be an mechanical archaeologist!

 

Just keeping the Gestapo on er toes!!!

 

A mechanical archaeologist, not an mechanical archaeologist tsk tsk......

 

Is this a mechanical archaeologist?

 

Looking good there, the engine looks really clean too unlike a lot of 'spare' lumps I've seen before.

 

Bit of yellowy, greasy stuff in the lower crankcase half? but that's all. Gonna start cleaning the crank n cams and then the rebuild begins, once I've replaced or repaired the tensioner support bracket.

 

Haven't made much progress this last week, too much DIY to do, to keep the peace. Today I decided to clean up and check the crankshaft, rods and bearings.

First I cleaned all the rust off the rotor. Not sure I'll be using it as I ran my last race bike with total loss ignition. May not use the starter ring gear and motor either to save weight

Then I blasted out every drop of chainlube that I had used to protect the crank from rust. Blasted brake cleaner at all the bearings and oilways, checked them for clicking and stiffness and then re-oiled the lot, wrapped in bubblewrap and stored safely outta the way.

Then I started the boring , but essential task of removing the old gasket sealant, gasket and any high spots from the crankcases. Still not finished , but making slow progress.

A lot more cleaning to do , but I am still waiting on the camchain tensioner support bracket from Robinsons, all the way from Japan.

 

Not had much time in the garage recently , but I managed an hour today. I was given 4 camshafts to clean up and use. They looked like this;

Gave them a clean with some WD40 and a nylon/carborundum rotary brush and spotted a couple of interesting mods;
Can you spot them/


and this;

 

looks like the cam sprockets have had the holes slotted to allow you to alter the timing slightly