Another couple of hours spent in the garage. I got the spray paint for the caliper today but decided to press on with the engine instead. Today I managed to get the oil pan back on (with the stuff inside it of course) and mounted the oil pump too. Oh, and I did some more cleaning. The way this grime clings to the engine is unreal. All I haven’t tried to get it off is voodoo and I don’t intend to try that. Fortsätt läsa Moving forward
Etikettarkiv: mechanics
Carbon deposits
No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, it seems like there is always going to be that one bolt standing between me and doing some really work. I am still struggling with the flywheel bolt to remove the alternator. Breaker bars, impact drivers, WD40… I cannot seem to find the Achilles heel of the bolt. Soon I will fall back on the one thing that worked before: Grinding the damn thing off.
Dirty heads
The new year is here and it has been a great start. Together with a friend, an impact driver and some force we managed to crack open the cylinder head bolts. It wasn’t easy but we did it so we could finally remove that part of the engine to have a look underneath. It was dirty. Like really dirty. I don’t know if the piston heads are supposed to look like that but they looked dirty. Fortsätt läsa Dirty heads
Ah, the pressure
Dismantling the Beast continues. I’ve never seen her in this state before. It’s like finding the remains of an old, fast dinosaur. Just clean picked bones remain. Maybe a little bit more at the moment but not much. Yesterday I drained and removed the cooling system according to the old principle “half in the jug, half on the floor”. Fortsätt läsa Ah, the pressure
Dismantling love
It’s been pretty quiet in here the last few days. The reason for this is simple and joyful: I’ve been busy dismantling my baby, my Beast, my CBR600 F2. I’ve never been this deep into the hardware of a bike before. It feels a bit like Star Trek, you know, “To boldly go where no man’s gone before”. Most of all I want to get the engine out for inspection and leave the frame for sandblasting and powder coating. While I’m at it, I might as well clean, inspect and lubricate everything else. Fortsätt läsa Dismantling love
Wrenching time
It was time. I knew it, she knew it. Between the rain and the cold, we both felt that waiting would only make it worse. So yesterday I went to work. At first it felt a bit awkward but soon we got back into the old routine and even experimented a bit. It was great! Fortsätt läsa Wrenching time
A proper amount of force
I guess there are two kinds of mechanics: Those who follow the specs and those who don’t. Of course there is an advantage to belong to the first group. Specs are specs for a reason. Unfortunately I belong to the second group. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that I don’t have much money. Torque wrenches are expensive for example. Now that I’m about to split the engine and check it out I’ve decided to switch to the spec team. Fortsätt läsa A proper amount of force
Magic and unicorns
To the untrained eye, and even to the more educated, motorcycles and all that comes with it might seem like magic. How does it really work? You twist your wrist, the engine roars, you let out the clutch and off you go. It’s both simple and complex at the same time. I often use the expression “deus ex machina” which translates to “god from the machine”. In its real sense it’s used to describe a plot twist in which the author, “god”, suddenly puts an event, object or person in the story to bring out a solution. I use it somewhat differently as I like to think of motorcycles as a spiritual experience. “God” in this case refers to the feelings that comes with riding a motorbike.
Tools of the trade
Who would have known that I one day would own not only a bright red toolbox but that it also would be full of wrenches, pliers, cutters and sockets? Not my family anyways. Growing up I was never interested in getting my hands dirty but technology to me was electronics; chips and wires and soldering. Having grease up to your elbows and using full body force to crack open bolts rusted stuck wasn’t exactly in my plan. I actually became some kind of high school engineer although that was more a twist of fate than anything else, and worked for a few years as some kind of test engineer on train signal systems. Fortsätt läsa Tools of the trade