Cylinder Removal

The cylinder was firmly stuck to the engine block. At first we tried with wodden blocks and all sorts of stuff, and ALOT of tapping with plastic hammers. After four hours we were on the werge of giving up, we had to find some way of applying pressure from below, without damaging the cooling fins. I had already chipped a little bit of one, which almost brought me to tears :-(
To get the pressure from below we first removed the bolts we could and tried to figure out what to do. I had the idea and my friend had the skill and tools to make it happen. He made threads in some pieces of metal that could fit in bolt gaps and using the engineblock as support, we finally got some movement even though it was only fractions of a millimeter. It was still stuck in some way, in the middle part, but with the pressure and some serious tapping it finally liftet of :-D And revealed some serious corroding on one of the bolts we couldn't get out. This was what cost us 6 hours of work, and has delayed the entire project. In easter we'll have a crack at it again, this time taking the block appart, and messauring the bearings. Hope we can make better progress this time, or i'm affraid i've overstayed my welcome at my friends workshop ;-)

The corrosion that made life difficult for us :-)

The "tool" in the bolt gap in the cylinder. It applies pressure upward using the engine block as support.


















The "tools" that helped us finally get the cylinder off.

The cylinder with the pressure bolts still on.

The cylinder finally off

A scratched up cylinder :-(

Ye olde piston.. has some carbon on the top, but otherwise fine. All will be changed with the rebore. From Ø62mm to Ø64.5mm (cb900 standard pistons)

Getting the head off

Finally found time to do some work on the engine. It's just been sitting on the table at the workshop for almost six months. Was really looking forward to getting my rookie hands dirty, but I was soon to regret that. The plan was to get the head, cylinder and engine block disassembled. Unfortunately things took quite a bit longer than expected. The engine hasn't been disassembled in over 20 years so we had our work cut out. With the cover of the head we got started. To get the cam-chains of, we had to remove the cam-shafts. Wasn't difficult, but its important to keep track of the bolts and assemble everything as it was, after the chains are of the sprockets. Picture 1. On picture 2 the cam-shafts has been removed and the chains are out of the way. Next we loosened the twelve domed nuts, in a diagonal pattern starting nearest the chaintunnel (as per the haynes manual) Getting the head off was a tedious and time consuming job, but with careful tapping and some patience we finally got it loose enough to lift it away. On picture 3 has just come of, and next a close up of one of the pistons :-( I was shocked to see all the carbon on the pistons. Wondering if taking the engine apart was such a good idea afterall. Might have been happier not knowing, and just kept riding :-) But there was no turning back.

In my next post i will reveal why, we never got to the block. The cylinder really made us work hard and almost give up. And some vids to :-)

Composite with new parts

Well, here it is, the composite with the new parts. didn't have a pic of my bike in high res. so I had to work with what I had. The front mudguard is the wrong color I know and the mirrors are missing, will fix it later. My fingers hurt from all the marking up for selections to make new layers and more. It's just for fun to get an idea of what it's gonna look like :-) Compare with the picture below.

Mechanics

A little inside look at the engine of a Honda CB750.. enjoy

Working on a composite picture of my bike with the new parts, just to get at peak on what it's gonna look like.. coming soon :-)