Monday, May 18, 2009

Island Ride and the Wide Keyslot

We went for a lovely island ride yesterday on Bainbridge. I know, it isn't technically an island, but that's how people up here talk. There was lots of fun, some blasting, viewing of some local wildlife and moped shenanagins. Sadly, as I was blasting the Magnum up-hill, I experienced something very similar to a seize, only it didn't sound like it. I pulled off the the size and tried to give the flywheel a push, and it wouldn't budge. So I pulled my plug and it looked just fine and dandy. The head comes off, and there are no smear marks on the cylinder, in fact it still looked pretty clean. The piston was stuck in the very back of the cylinder, as you might recall, when prepping the cylinder I had issues with the piston sticking down there anyway. I honed the cylinder enough to get the piston to clear the exhaust port, even though it still wouldn't drop out. Looks like I might need to give it a bit more space. So the piston skirt expanded a smidge and stuck, with a little bit of force on the flywheel and it popped lose and rolled nice and smooth. Jumped the main jet up to a 108 from 105 and the idle up from 40 to 42. However, the bike wouldn't start. Sounded like a timing problem. Pulled the flywheel to find that when the piston stuck, the flywheel must have wanted to keep spinning, and stripped the slot on the flywheel again. This happend recently with my old points flywheel. I blame a bad woodruff key and a bad mechaninc. So with the careful use of a file and tightening the flywheel carefully but firmly, I was able to set the timing back on perfectly. That is, until I would shut the motor off, at which point the abrupt stopping of the flywheel would cause the timing to get thrown off. Thus, every time I had to kill the motor I had to reset my timing. I think the flywheel is salvageable, but the key must go. I'm going to try and source some locally, we will see how that turns out.

5 comments:

rosanna said...

how is something that is completely surrounded by water not an island? you can only get to bainbridge by ferry or by crossing a bridge. perhaps islands are different in indiana and nebraska? hahaha.

Cpt. F.L.E.E.T.T.R.E.A.T.S. said...

stop breaking flywheels. you're not supposed to do that.

and yeah, definitely is an island.

Philip Patrie said...

Come on, if you can drive to it, it's not an island. Plus, I didn't see anyone playing steel drums and I also didn't get a lei. Not an island.

Cpt. F.L.E.E.T.T.R.E.A.T.S. said...

then you are discounting the only 59 year old bridge and Agate Pass?

Coming from an ocean-less state we can only conclude you must just be an idiot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agate_Pass

Arianna Elizabeth said...

Totally an island, doofus.