After 2 years of struggling with locating the proper head bolts, last night I had a eureka moment. I was thrilled because I was finally able to procure the correct whithworth bolts that were always out of stock, but it seems that they're being newly re-manufactured again (at $15 each, yeesh!) I dropped one in place and started to thread it when my heart sank. It didn't fit. Again.
I set the offenders aside to work on later, and put together the new carb instead. When I came back to the head bolts, I decided to just try dropping one in again to start taking measurements. All of a sudden, it went right in perfectly. Weird.
I backed it out and tried putting it into the other hole, but with only a few turns, it jammed up and wouldn't thread. I backed it out, and sure enough, the threads were jacked. HOWEVER, this was a blessing in disguise.
What we deduced is that at some point, someone had re-tapped only one of the holes for the head bolts, leaving the other in its original shape. When I tightened the ww bolt into position, I had turned it far enough and with just the right amount of vigor for the threads to reshape perfectly enough to show me exactly what bolt size I would need. Turns out, it's just a regular ol' 50-cent 5/16"-26 bolt from the hardware store.
So, basically I've spent 2 years trying all sorts of expensive bolts to find out that my problems all stemmed from some shithead pulling a slack job in 1971. Toothless bastard.
I picked up the new bolts (in every possible length, just in case) this morning, and should have them installed and delicious this weekend.
What else is new? To start, I finally ordered my 626 Amal carb, and it's a beauty. It went on without a hitch. I mocked up the Boyer, and it seems to fit quite well, so I'm good to wire up the test board before long, and there's a chance we'll see this pig shoot some sparks in the near future.
Lowbrow customs totally rules, by the way. They've been able to hook me up with tons of whithworth nuts and bolts and a lot of what I need for WAY less than the folks at the other brit spares shops. I'm swimming in sexy new stainless allen cover bolts and acorn nuts. They've also got a bunch of great standard stuff like cloth spark wires and old school niceties.
I picked up a pair of NGK B8ES spark plugs and will drop those in for the show, but definitely not going to put the sexy bakelite plug caps on 'em yet.
Oh yeah, the show! On the 20th, Mark and I are going to show off his monster hill-climber, an old Triumph engine and my BSA motor and the big motorcycle expo at the fairgrounds. (I'll be sure to take photos with my new camera!) Mostly he chose to show off mine because my engine is so dang pretty, and will make all the boys jealous. With the assumption that the new head bolt fits, here's what I'd like to get done before the show:
- sand blast the ugly chrome off the old finned rocker cover and do a quick polish
- polish the big side cover once I've gotten the new side bolts sorted.
- polish all the badges and inspection covers and install.
- mount boyer electronics to a wood panel for testing.
- get a battery and a switch for testing (or if I'm ghetto, steal the one from my Honda and just touch wires together.
- Oil. Lots of oil.
- Mock up a fuel and oil feed system so I don't have to hook up the tanks to test the motor.
For now, I really don't give a squat about brakes, frame, forks, lights, etc. It all about getting the motor running and dialed in. Boo-yah!
No comments:
Post a Comment