Spike Has a Blowout

At some point in Septemberish, I'm sure that it was my fault, Spike blew a big hole in the bottom of her motor. It was very sad for me, I didn't realize how much I identified myself as a motorcycle rider, and my neglect of Spike had brought us to this pass, I'm sure. Having read up on it, and in hindsight, I'm sure the oil burning problem had gone farther than I thought.

We retrieved her from the Number One the same night, brought her home and snugged her in. I wasn't sure what I would do next. With the aid of a carpool, some of the urgency was taken out of it for me so I had the time to decide. I took that time, and thought about it, and despite the work involved and being relatively new to motorcycle repair, I decided to fix her. I know this means replacing the engine, among other things to get her back to good.

Finally we had break in the weather, so on a particularly sunny evening, I pulled her tank off and prepped her for a new engine, getting right down to the point where her engine could be removed, but not quite removing it.

This was a long and involved process, took about two noob days altogether. I started by emptying the gas tank which involved pulling the seat off the bike, undoing the bolt that holds the tank on and gently easing the tank up and back. It may have been better to disconnect hoses first but I wasn’t sure what would happen or whether gas would flow if I did that, so I didn’t. My petcock doesn’t have an off position (does anybody’s?) so I left it on and loosened the two hoses from the bike, leaving them attached to the petcock. Sparky (Jason’s bike) was low on fuel, and rather than store, I figured I’d drain what I could as I could, making sure that there was no fuel left sitting for who knows how long.

I knew I’d be pulling the engine at some point, no matter what, so I proceeded through the steps in the guide which told me: remove the engine guard (a home jobby out of heavy duty stainless tubing that was on the bike when we bought it), remove the exhaust, which I did, with the help of friends to move the bits and hubby and I to lift the bike in absence of another hoist method. It was VERY HEAVY. I began pulling bits off the bike like pegs, side panels and “air filter”. The air filter on this bike seems to be just a big empty junction box that funnels up to underneath the seat, the logic being that your ass filters everything required? I’m not sure. I think this is about where I thought to read the book and see what it said about removing the carburetor. It seemed like it would be very hard. It wasn’t, it was, in fact VERY EASY. The carbs are set behind the engine and separated from it and from the air intake by sets of rubber…I’ll call them flanges. I can’t remember what the right term is just now. Once you pull the clamps off the flanges you can reach in and pull the rear ones out, they just sort of push into place. Then you pull the carbs off, then the front flanges can come. Now the engine is standing solo. There are electric leads that must be removed from the sparks and the alternator. We labeled all the cables and taped them to the frame so they wouldn’t get in the way when we went to pull the engine.The engine mount bolts on this bike were VERY tough to pull. Everyone had a stab at it, taking upwards of 40 minutes altogether, but it was the donkey determination of my 16 year old nephew, with the help of a hot and cheering chicky that finally did the job. I recommend getting one of these handy tools for your garage, if you can possibly manage it.

There was nothing more I could do at this point, so we rolled Sparky into dry storage and I began the hunt for her new engine. In two months I had not much luck finding one that was in satisfactory shape that could be swapped out. I had sort of given up and thought I'd list the bike as parts for sale. I did so, but with no action on that post either. Finally someone came to look, but in the process of lowballing our suggested price, which I refused, the fellow lets me know that his bike could be bought for a mere $300. It was in an accident and has frame and cosmetic damage, but the engine is just fine. Voila! He sent me some pics and the bike looks fine.

So I run back to my original plan of taking the winter to fix Spike up for Spring. We get the new bike home. She is christened Cherry (after Cherry 2000 tho she is already dead), and use her as parts to recycle my old love. Spike should be fit come Spring with luck and determination, and what's the next step? A careful cleaning and labeling for all parts for both bikes, to get them prepped for the engine swap.

NEXT UP: Cleaning Spike's old parts
Pulling Cherry's parts,
Cleaning Cherry's parts

If you have any thoughts on cleaning parts, or technical knowhow on swapping out an engine, please send ‘em my way, cuz this noob may have bit off more than she can chew!