Evie: Straight Pipe Fired!

Saw that the early top end used the solid head gasket so swapped over to that for the sake of it.

Did the quick test of removing the air filter, putting my hand on the intake and then cranking a few times.  Should get a handful of gas at that point, but not only was there no gas, there wasn't even any suction.  Big clue, finally!

Then just walked it down.  Removed the carb entirely and found that I had suction on the head itself.  

But when I went to test the intake, discovered that I hadn't CUT A HOLE in the DIY gasket!!

Bone headed mistake, but at least problem solved.

As usual, as soon as I cut the hole and put everything back together, she literally started on second kick.

Straight pipe is loud and awesome!  Almost too loud to leave it idling but sounds fantastic.

 

 

Evie: Jug Swap

 Decided to swap back to the orange (x-Red) jug to eliminate the unknown factor of the Flexhone jug.  No issues on the swap itself but it didn't affect the compression at all.

Poured some oil down into the plug hole and got the compression to jump to 60.

 

 

Evie: Valve Lapping

 First time lapping valves and was surprisingly straight forward.

The suction cup was fine on the larger intake valve, but would never successfully stick to the smaller exhaust valve.  But just by keeping downward pressure on the valve while spinning, was able to get the lapping done.

Thought this was going to be the magic fix, but after getting the head back together, the psi hadn't budged at all and was still down at just 35.

 

 

Evie: Leak Test

So a pretty conclusive leak test on Evie's early head: gas drained in seconds.

On the carpet later that evening, it was easy to see just how cruddy and caked everything was.  Removed both valves and gave them a good cleanup.  Used fine grain to just clean up the edges of the valves.  Will first see how it does with the leak test again then will decide whether a lapping is needed.

Update 10/19: Redid the leak test and found that while it was definitely improved, there was still a significant leak from the intake valve.  So looks like some lapping is in order.

 

 

Red: Slipping Clutch, Part V

Unclear what caused the clutch to freeze up on the last ride, but to safe, decided to swap in the new but thinner disks (in case the two extra-thick ones were somehow the root cause).

After swapping everything over, had that same issue where the arm was very far out and was locked stiff, but with a slight push it "popped" right into place.  It was now much closer to where the cable was held.

But why???

In rebuilding had also realized that the arms of the cotter pin were sticking out at right angles and so had bent them inward.  Could that have been contributing to the issue the whole time??

 

 

Evie: Ain't Got No Compression

 Not getting anywhere on 30 psi.

 

Red: Slipping Clutch, Part IV

Installed the new "two nut" clutch cable.  Even with all that extra length it was still a tight fit.  Ended up having to remove one of the nuts just to get enough slack in.  But at least it's on.

10/8 UPDATE: Test ride on the new clutch/cable.  The very good news is that there's loads more power on tap.  So for sure I must have set up the old clutch badly to where it was always partially engaged and robbing stealing power to the wheels.  

Bad news is that twice on the ride, the clutch "stuck" and wouldn't pop free when I released the lever.  Not sure if it's an internal issue or if it's the cable.  Hope it's just the cable...

 

Red: Slipping Clutch, Part III

Relatively routine at this point.  Swapped in the other extra-thick friction disk so that there were two fo them installed.

Didn't actually seem to impact the clutch distance that much but seemed better to have the two thickest in there so that hopefully that withstand the extra HP a bit better.

Got some new wood-handled screwdrivers which I then sanded down specifically to handle this oily clutch work.  Worked a treat!

Now just need to wait on the new clutch cable.

 

 

Parts Sorting

 

 

 

Red Clutch Slipping Part II

Next attempt at the clutch fix after spending time on the carpet working out how the different plate thicknesses affect the clutch arm slack.

Popped out the clutch and swapped one of the disks for the extra-thick version.  The total width of all four plates together was 10mm.  However, after reinstalling the basket, saw that it was very far away from the primary gear (5mm), which is a good initial test.  

With everything reassembled, that proved to be accurate.  It was better than before in that now there was at least a little slack in the clutch arm before it engaged, but it was nowhere near enough to install the cable.

Realized two things:

1. There seems a strong possibility that I had set up the cable before in such away that it was always partially engaging the clutch.  This would have explained the lack of power and that feeling like the something wasn't getting transferred from engine to wheels.  It would also explain why the clutch plates wore down so fast and thus started to slip.
2. While it seems worthwhile to setup the clutch thickness to get it in the ballpark, it also makes sense to just get another clutch cable but the kind that has the adjustable nuts at the end (like Roxy currently has) which allows for much more flexibility in setting up the distances (especially when using aftermarket disks).  Put the order in already...