Wow, that's clean. Is the outside just as clean?

 

Oh heck no. The outside had 25+ years of dirt cooked onto it. I got much of it off, but there is still some left. The cylinder and head will be taken care of by the machine shop. I may scrub down the timing cover and clutch cover before I put them on. The rest of the cleaning will waiting until the engine is assembled. I am a little concerned about knocked a small rock or too much dirt into the clean bearings.

I am not sure what the inside of these ATV motors usually look like, but I have always been pretty obsessive about changing oil.

 

Got the crank back in the left case before work this morning. I used a heat gun to heat up the bearing and the area around the bearing until a drip of water dropped on it boiled off, then I dropped the crank in. No pressing, hammering etc, it just went right in.



Now I have to start on the jigsaw puzzle that is the trans gears and forks.

 

I managed to get most of the transmission back together on my lunch break, it was not that bad. Some how in the past week, two thrust washers just disappeared. No idea what happened to them. My only guess is they were sticking to the shafts and when I moved them they fell off. Not a huge deal as I don't have any of the other parts back from the machine shop yet, but still annoying as I wanted to seal up the cases tonight. More waiting, I am not very good at being patient.

 

Still waiting on the thrust washer, machine shop and coater, but I know I need at least one rear tire so I decided to break the tire off the rim. My F150 hitched turned out to be a pretty good bead breaker. I jacked the truck up a little, threw the 2x4 in there and let it sit for about 15 minutes, the bead popped off on it's own while I was inside.

 

I'll have to give that one a try sometime.

 

This tire had been on that rim since probably 1988 or so, I was a little surprised it worked. It had a gash on the sidewall so I could not keep any air in it at all. Normally when trying to break a bead I leave some air in the tire, that was not possible with this one.

This waiting crap is killing me. The coater called yesterday and said they had issue with their gloss black powder so they had to strip my frame and start all over. It is cool they called to let me know and also cool they tried to fix the issue before I noticed it so I am not upset with them.

In the meantime I decided to pull one of the front calipers apart to see how it looked:



It looked pretty good. The seals were fine, but I am still going to replace them. There was a little residue on the wall, I used 0000 steel wool to remove it. The bleeder valves will need to be replaced and I am afraid I will need new brake hoses. Suzuki does not make them anymore so I will just have to find someone local to build them for me. I could go with stainless braided hoses . I need them for my bike anyone, might be cheaper to have them all made at the same time.

Just in case you are wondering why I don't pull everything down and work on it all at once, I have a small work area. It is a workshop that is nothing more then a large shed. I am a little nervous about doing much of anything while I still have the motor disassembled and sitting on my workbench. Once the motor work is completed I can really get rolling. I want this all done by the end of May

 

Just found out the washers I need will not be to me until the end of next week. More delays. I guess I will tear the a arms apart and start prepping them for paint. Hopefully I can just sit the motor/transmission part off to the side without losing anything else.

 

I feel your pain. It took me three weeks to get the front-end bearings for mine.

Be sure you have the right bearings for your arms before tearing them apart.

 

Thanks for the advice. I wanted to get this done by May, but I do not think that is realistic. I will take my time and do it correctly. I just need it done by August because I am building a cabin on a mountain and need to be able to run back and forth up the "road" without having to walk or drive my truck.

Of course I also wanted to keep this rebuild under a grand, but I am quickly closing in on that.