Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Stop all engines...


Earlier today I began to assemble the crankcase. It went together pretty smoothly up to this point. I managed to get the gears and the selectors installed despite being handicapped by having only two hands and ten fingers. This really is a project for an octopus. I remember reading once that this could be more easily done if the gears and the selector mechanism were tied together with some light string before being assembled...then you would just remove the string once you had everything installed on the receiving crankcase half. May be next time.

The problem arose when I went to install the dowel and o-rings to the engine mounting points. When I re-read the instructions in my Hayes Manual I realized for the first time that the term "dowel" was plural. You are supposed to have two of the little buggers. I only had one. The last guy to get into this engine had apparently mis-placed one of them and simply put the engine together with only one in place. This was not a complete surprise to me. When I took the engine apart and while I was taking the rest of the bike apart I noticed that there were almost no washers anywhere on the machine. This TY has led a hard life. 

Next I need to find a source for a couple of dowels. First I will try eBay just because it is quicker, but if there is nothing there, I'll be back at TY Trials. It seems silly to have to ship a couple of little tiny pieces from England to Mexico, but if that is the only choice I will do it. 

So for now, I am back to cosmetics until these pieces arrive. Stay tuned.

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