Greetings all! A bit of thread necromancy here....but anyways. After a long delay, I have finally started to move forward on my project again. The funny thing about the desert is, just as everyone else's riding season is coming to a close, mine is just getting started. With that said, I didn't want to miss a bunch of months of good riding with my Enfield in pieces.....so the head is on the way to Ace at Mondello's. Noooo....not for the full treatment. But to have a look at my (likely) receding exhaust valve (again). And to see if any of his magic head shedding treatments would be worthwhile without doing the flow work. It ships tomorrow morning.
And since I was getting my hands dirty, I started pulling the barrel and piston with the intent of going ahead and placing the Ace piston and barrel that have been sitting in my shop all summer. You'll recall I had the usual trouble getting the head off....so much for reusing the carbon fiber gasket (new one is already here):
Fair amount of carbon buildup on the piston:
And interestingly enough, the bottom piston ring (scraper?) was in place but broken:
They were all moving freely enough, so no distortion of the piston, and the old iron bore is still nice and clean and free from gouges. I think I will box it and keep it as backup in case of future failures. I have a set of OEM rings around here in that event.
Now, I was checking the crank by hand just to make sure it seemed still good. It rotates cleanly, the arm has no wiggle or play fore and aft....but there is some side to side play. Is this a major problem? (You'll recall I'm doing this modified clubman build on a stock bottom end for now)
Also took of the plate I need to drill to mount the Chumma oil filter kit....will drill that tomorrow hopefully. Anyone want the cooler I was using?
Panniers should come off tomorrow. STILL going back and forth on how to handle the luggage situation. Soft bags? like wolfmans? Hard cases? How the f--- to mount them decently? Inder trailer? Moto-mule (google it...its cool)? Well, I'm not leaving for Alaska tomorrow, so I have time to decide.
Ok. That's it for this installment of Milk can't make up his mind. Be safe all.