Kickin it up a notch.

I worked on the bike for almost 8 hours today. I got a lot of work done. I took tons of pictures to show everything, but I have decided to do this post Tarantino style. I stopped today after I pulled the motor! 

As you can imagine pulling the motor was a big milestone in this build (for me at least). Pulling the motor would have never happened without Jorge. I was polishing the motor and cleaning the frame when Jorge came home from work. He came downstairs and saw my progress. He checked out my work and hung out for about 5 minutes before he said, "let's just pull the motor." Jorge took the lead on getting the motor out, and it only took about two hours total.

 

It took a small amount of help from the impact driver but all the mounts came out pretty easy for a 40 year old bike. 

I also drained the oil from the motor so the filter would clear the frame on extraction.

Who ever owned this bike before didn't put a filter back in on the last oil change. That was not such a huge deal. I have heard of a guy on forums not running filters, just coolers. Needless to say, I will be putting a cartridge filter back in once I put new oil in. To get the motor off, I had to remove the chain. The chain didn't have a master link, so it had to be removed unconventionally. 

I cut the chain so I can put a master link on and reuse the chain if I choose. It may be best to replace the chain anyway.

Before Jorge came home, I mentioned I was polishing the motor. I cleaned up the shifter as well, one side of the bike looks new! 

I sanded the cover starting with 200 grit and worked my way to 800 grit. I plan on going up to 2000 grit paper, so I have a couple more hours of polishing left ahead of me. The shifter cleaned up nicely, I cleaned it off the bike while I was polishing the cover.

All in all a very productive day. Now that I have the engine out, the new tail section will be getting welded on very soon, and the new seat will follow. I also pulled the exhaust, which will also be replaced.

If Jorge continues to help me as much as he has so far, this build will be done months ahead of what I had originally planned.