[tooseevee]

Installed the Hitchcocks push-rod boots. Nice! These won't be jumping the tappets anytime soon! 

            I have a pair of those on the shelf. Ordered them during the first or second year I had the '08.

            What I found is that they were a hair too long to get in without lifting the head so the pushrods could be lifted a bit. So I didn't bother because at that stage of "straightening out" the bike from the shoddy detail work from the factory the last thing I wanted to do was partially disassemble the engine and break that seal at the head.

            I thought of grinding a few thousandths off the bottom surface to squeeze them in, but never got a round tuit.

            And THEN in 2014, when I pulled the head off to send it to Ace (our Wizard) I forgot to put them in!   

             So there they still sit on the shelf.
             

[heloego]

Yep. Same here.
I ordered up two sets about a year ago and ran into the same thing. So they just sat until opportunity knocked.  I damned near forgot to install them, too. 
When I finally get the current project finished, it'll be time to get started on MY AVL and it'll get the same mod! 

[tooseevee]

Yep. Same here.
I ordered up two sets about a year ago and ran into the same thing. So they just sat until opportunity knocked.  I damned near forgot to install them, too. 
When I finally get the current project finished, it'll be time to get started on MY AVL and it'll get the same mod! 

            Hey, I'll be glad when you get around to your AVL. It's kind of boring here on the ol' AVL forum of late.

             You will love what Ace does with your head. And with a decent carb and exhaust and the right amount of tweaking it will run so sweeeet  you won't believe it.

             But can Ace still do what he did with my head ? I've lost track of his Mondello connection.

              Just look at that beautiful reshaping, the nice big valves, the ceramic coat, the nice little manifold for the TM32. Gorgeous

[heloego]

To some extent I've already upgraded my AVL. IIRC Ace doesn't want to do AVL head any more and I just couldn't afford anymore if he did. 
A couple years ago I spent the winter working on the whole bike.
AVL got new valves, ported and polished (to some extent), VM32 carb, got rid of the PAV crap, and a stage 1 mod.
I'm really happy with the performance. I just forgot to add the pushrod mod. 
When I get back to it, the rod mod will be incorporated after I blast the head, clean up the fin edges, anodize it (and the barrel fins), and re-clean the fins for a nice shiny edge. 

[tooseevee]

To some extent I've already upgraded my AVL. IIRC Ace doesn't want to do AVL head any more and I just couldn't afford anymore if he did. 

When I get back to it, the rod mod will be incorporated after I blast the head, clean up the fin edges, anodize it (and the barrel fins), and re-clean the fins for a nice shiny edge. 

           Anodize. Great choice. Does away with any discussion of what other coatings might do to heat transfer.

           I wrinkle-blacked my barrel, but did nothing to the head. As soon as I reassembled it I wished I had had it blasted. Whatever that silver stuff on the head is just isn't a great look. To me anyway.

[Arizoni]

 IMO, wrinkle paint of any kind is about the worst thing to coat a cylinder or cylinder head with that a person could use.  In order to wrinkle it has to be fairly thick and thick doesn't allow heat to go thru it.  It also isn't designed to take high heat although the temperatures on a cylinder barrel don't get really hot.  Cylinder heads on the other hand can easily get to be over 300 degrees F during normal operation.

There is a rattle can paint that is made expressly for conducting heat on the market.  It is the stuff that's made for painting wood burning stoves and BBQ's.  It goes on thin, has very good thermal conductivity and it can take really high temperatures.
Look for RustOleum High Heat Satin Bar B Que-Black-Spray-Paint

[tooseevee]

IMO, wrinkle paint of any kind is about the worst thing to coat a cylinder or cylinder head with that a person could use.  In order to wrinkle it has to be fairly thick and thick doesn't allow heat to go thru it.  It also isn't designed to take high heat although the temperatures on a cylinder barrel don't get really hot.  Cylinder heads on the other hand can easily get to be over 300 degrees F during normal operation.

There is a rattle can paint that is made expressly for conducting heat on the market.  It is the stuff that's made for painting wood burning stoves and BBQ's.  It goes on thin, has very good thermal conductivity and it can take really high temperatures.
Look for RustOleum High Heat Satin Bar B Que-Black-Spray-Paint

        Ohmygod I'll have to tear the whole thing down now and blast it off and do it all over.....

          I heated my whole house exclusively (1970-1982) with a Fisher Papa Bear that got stove blacked every few years and since then over the years have also used it on some bike parts. Good stuff.

[Adrian II]

The powder coating on the AVL head and barrel is quite stubborn, I had an Electra-X top end stripped, but my local vapour - sorry, vapor blaster had to use chemical stripper on it first. Yuk. How well does anodizing take on cast alloy?

A.

[tooseevee]

The powder coating on the AVL head and barrel is quite stubborn, I had an Electra-X top end stripped, but my local vapour - sorry, vapor blaster had to use chemical stripper on it first. Yuk. How well does anodizing take on cast alloy?

A.

            Ya got me there. I dunno. I'd hafta go to the Google Machine.

             All I know  there's no thickness to it. If it turns sideways, it disappears  ; like Two Dimension Man 

[heloego]

This came up at the top of the list when I Googled "Anodize":

https://www.wikihow.com/Anodize-Aluminum

As stated in the DYI instructions, it works very well for aluminum.

I also thought the recommendation to test it with an older offspring might work well (as a discipline measure), too. Give 'em a taste of what it could be like in prison. 

Anodizing and Alodining serve the same purpose: Corrosion protection.
While Anodizing is a chemical process that coats and changes the surface molecules, the Anodizing process is electro-chemical.
I'm already familiar with the Alodine process. Did a lot of that with Bonderite 1132 working on the Gulf due to the salty humidity. Color selection is limited, though it is available in Clear and food coloring or other dye could be added I guess. I'll need to get some and test it with coloring. 


(Interesting: On the Google search results page the sidebar has a link to power supply for "mere" $224!
It's exactly the same PS I got for under $50 on e-bay. Maybe I should make a label with a fancy name and sell mine for $224. A $175 profit ain't bad at all.  )

[Arizoni]

Aluminum castings are anodized all the time for corrosion protection and sometimes to add color to them.

The only catch is, there can not be any iron or steel parts on/in the casting so things like valve seats and valve guides would have to be removed before doing the process.

While very simple anodizing can be done fairly simply, color anodizing needs to be done by companies who specialize in it.  They have the chemicals to do all of the cleaning and coating processes the right way.

[Adrian II]

The only catch is, there can not be any iron or steel parts on/in the casting so things like valve seats and valve guides would have to be removed before doing the process.

That's a LOT of hassle for an AVL engine, cylinder liner as well as valve seats, just for a surface treatment? Bare alloy seems to last well enough.

A.

[heloego]

" The only catch is, there can not be any iron or steel parts on/in the casting so things like valve seats and valve guides would have to be removed before doing the process."
That does seem excessive just to anodize.
Dissimilar metals corrosion?

[Arizoni]

The anodizing processes use strong acids in addition to electricity to do the job.
These work together to dissolve any metal other than aluminum so basically, the steel or iron inserts will be dissolved.  The aluminum will also be damaged by the dissimilar corrosion you mentioned.

In other words, yes, everything will get damaged.

[heloego]

Thanks, A.
That precludes any anodizing any time soon.