On Saturday, Mini-b and I took a ride out to Midnight Mass custom culture extravaganza. I decided to take the Turbo bike since it was running so well. It was just to hot out to run it down the freeway and I blew the head gasket as we pulled in the lot. Of coarse this meant that it was going to blow a smokey mess all over once it cooled off witch wouldn't have bothered me as much if was hitting on all four. At the same time Mini's starter decided to act up and it was down right humiliating on the way out. The show and venue was awesome even though I didn't stick around very long because I was stressing over the results of the cool down.
As far as the head gasket goes, I think I'm going to re torque it a bit first . I'm really surprised that it went, I used the multi layer Viton coated stainless type that is usually indestructible. However, aluminum moves funny when you get it hot and if the re torque works I will need to find a way to keep it cooler. Maybe back to the drawing board on the oiling system.... stupid turbo bike.
The other major bummer is; in order to remove the cam cover on these old bastards you have to have the motor out of the frame. I think its in my best interest to make the back bone removable so I can service the motor without wanting to kick a baby in the face. This mod will probably take less time than yanking the motor out anyway. I had a feeling that a head gasket was going bad soon, I just thought it was going to be that Land Rover we bought. Guess this is better than that.
Feel for you man, they were a bastard to even do everyday work on in that frame, not one of the Flying Wing's finest design moments, onward and upward Ry, you'll sort it.
ReplyDeleteGuess I might have mentioned earlier. Solid copper head gaskets and "O" rings with big boost numbers.
ReplyDeleteI know better too. I wouldn't do this to my Kaw but I was only planning on running 6-10 psi boost so this gasket that Cycle X claimed to be bad ass sounded like a easy solution. not so true.
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