Busy weekend.

This weekend I had planned on going to a motorcycle show in Kentucky with Sofia (my girlfriend). Instead, I decided to save the gas money, stay in town, and work on my motorcycle. 

One of the first things I did this weekend was run the new fuel lines for the carbs and make sure everything was ready to go. 

The carbs are done and awaiting installation. 

Next, I decided to rebuild the master cylinder. I got a bunch of baking soda at Walmart to run through the media blaster. Between a little sand paper, soda blasting, and a little paint, the lever came out pretty good. Before...

And after...

I sand blasted and repainted the bracket on the underside of the cylinder. Before sand blasting.

After sand blasting.

And finally, painted and installed.

After working on the master cylinder I sand/soda blasted the exhaust header collars. Before: 

And after.

They cleaned up pretty nice.

 I used the master cylinder and exhaust collars to hone my skills in preparation for my goal this weekend, the motor. Before pulling the motor apart, I talked to Jorge to get his opinion on the best course of action. He said to check compression and if the compression is good, to not pull the motor apart. That seemed like a decent plan. If anything goes wrong, I have a full seal kit on standby. 

The issue with checking compression was the spark plug threading. It's a pretty uncommon thread pattern and size. We had to use the lathe to make the socket into a thin walled socket.

 

Thin wall mod.

 

Jorge's compression checker would not fit. I have been wanting to learn how to use the lathe for a while now, and today I learned a lot. Yes, I could have just gone to AutoZone and picked one up for 15 bucks (although I hear its hard to find an adapter for these bikes), but I learned so much more by making my own. Jorge even learned a couple of things during the course of this little side project. 

We made the adapter and compression tested the motor.

The compression was fine. Readings were (from left to right) 135, 135, 125, and 130. The original Honda manuals say you should be around 150-170. That reading was taken with a Honda specific tool that uses a hard line from the engine to the gauge. Using a car style tester will yield lower numbers. Because of this, the general rule (according to forum gurus and ex Honda techs) is if you're over 90psi and within 10% of each other then you're good. The higher the better with the psi. So, my motor seems pretty healthy. More to come later this week.