Hit a major stump this afternoon. For a birthday present to myself was going to hear the engine run for the first time. It's not quite ready to ride but it was far enough along the engine could be run. No compression in the front cylinder.
Initially the starter would bump but wouldn't kick over. No great surprise there with all the freshly painted surfaces. Pulled all the cables back off, sanded all the surfaces, replaced an iffy looking negative cable and solved that. Starter now worked fine. This was good as it takes awhile to make up another red starter.
Then the engine wouldn't run. It'd barely fire and sound a bit ugly. But that's all. Fuel pressure was good static and while cranking. Since I at least heard it fire a bit tried a compression test before chasing electrics. Especially since it was throwing no error codes.
Back hole was almost 150 on the cold engine. Front hole was 25. Nuts.
For now put everything that was loose back in place on the bike. Just to keep track of pieces. Going to take a break from the project until my mood is better and it'll be fun rather than a chore to work on it again.
When that used drivetrain came home six weeks or so ago I several times nearly had myself talked in to pulling at least the heads off. But didn't want to get in to a motor job right now. Just not enough time to do it right between now and spring. Finding the supposedly good used motor and dropping it in was just the ideal thing right now. Ride the bike this year and do the engine next winter.
Should've opened it up. The guy's story was good. He was a pleasant old fart. He's far enough way it's not worth any follow up. And when taking the rockers off to put on the red parts the top of the engine was as clean as a new motor. There was enough going on in favor of it being as described that it overrode my better judgement. Now will have to work things over in the bike and take the risk of marking things up.
Will try to borrow a buddy's borescope sometime in the next couple weeks to visualize the hole. Do have a good set of heads from a 95" motor that could be swapped on if the problem is solely there. But honestly not wild about the idea of just swapping heads. Whole thing may just set again for quite awhile until have time to do the engine as I'd planned for later.
Will, of course, have to keep my finger crossed that the engine's only problems are in the top end. Have had the cam chest open. Was clean in there and tensioners looked good. But have to at least worry now about a bottom end problem. After all, why would someone swap a complete drivetrain for just a burned valve?
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Topic: New 02 Brandywine SERK -- Long Term Project (Read 189415 times)