My thoughts were having done similar work to engines in the past, the cost of at least a partial strip and rebuild and the price of a new motor.harty210 wrote:Well there are definitely 2 trains of thought on this topic, which is why I raised it in the first place, and I have been torn as to which line to take.
I have to say Neosophist, after seeing a gasket set is £70 or £30 for the head gaskets alone, and although the bike is a project and I dont mind spending a bit of money on it, i would rather not get into unnecessary work, the bike cost me £150 and was supposed to be a fairly straightforward project to clean and powder coat the frame and sort the fairings out for a reasonably low budget, to get a clean tidy looking bike, as I don't have loads of money to throw at it, but at the same time don't want to cut corners.
Therefore I have been thinking along the lines of if I can free it up and degrease it the best I can without removing the head then hopefully any residue should burn off with a bit of running, as it was caused by fuel on the valves and not water. and if that doesn't work then I bite the bullet and strip the engine or worse case replace it. I am looking at the bike for road use so as long as it runs well and has good compression then I am not looking for super track performance.
I don't disagree that if money is no object then a full strip and rebuild / clean will be the best course of action.
I've got engines running the past that were in worse condition. But if somethign does go bang you will pick up a running 21 motor cheaper than a gasket set..
The engines ive got running never had any noticable drop in power either..
obviously your milage may vary but id try and get it running..
the rockerboxes are resuable rubber gaksets so you can push the valve open a bit and grab the end of it to pull it shut.
get a small screwdriver in there and scrape the valve clean.
scoosh it with some high penetrating cleaner too and that crap should drop off.
if you have parafin gun and air compressor get the sump off and blast the crap out the block all ways to give it a good rinse out.
if it all goes tits up you can always get another motor for not a great deal.
if it does go tits up get the block apart before ordering a gasket set, check everything.. it might be knackered in some non-related way which you wont know till its running.. at least if you get it apart first if you fail to get it running you can check bore wear, bearing shell clearnaces and condition and decided on if its worth a gasket set or a running motor as a replacement.
if your not SOL and JWF then youll probably get the one you have running with a bit of fettling withotu needing a stripdown.
