Playing with the phone-camera the other day, and figured out how to zoom in on pics I've already taken. The last post used my first 'zoom-ins' done with my 'awesome phone' as the Gorgeous Biker Chick calls her Samsung... These glowing orbs of delicousness are from my little tomatoe plot (well. OK, the 5 gallon buckets between me and my neighbor's house.
My 1960 Triumph Cub as it arrived at my house. Always a gamble to buy a basket case bike, as Hermit can attest...never know how many fish you might find in the carburetor...The engine wouldn't kick over and appeared to be locked up...
I decided to do a little 'recon' mission into the heart of the little Cubster to see what we could see...A while back Wes had mentioned using a 50/50 mix of automatic transmission fluid and acetone for attacking rusty stuff...so thought I'd give it a try. I removed the plug and poured in a mix of the aforementioned ingredients, and let it sit in there while I started getting tools together for the process...which took place on my front porch, which was nice and shady and let me listen to groovy sounds from the living room stereo.
The Cub has a pretty compact engine for a 200cc engine, it looks more like a 100 or 125. The Cub is a developement of an earlier Triumph 150 that was called the Terrior.
This shot gives you an idea of it's narrowness, and why it was popular as a Trials mount.
As I started to work on the bike I noticed a familiar hue under the black frame paint, a very faded metallic reddish/purple color that I believe is a Testor's model spray paint I once used to paint a Revell model of a '57 Chevy sometime back in my youth...
The interior of the Amal Monobloc carb, Been years since I've played with an Amal carb. Pretty grotty looking in there....sprayed it with some 'PB-Blaster'...which loosened the float and other parts and I was able to dismantle it for further cleaning. The slide was remarkably unworn and underneath that alien sludge is a working carb I believe...
The interior of the rocker box looks good, and raised my hopes for the rest of the motor...
Pulled the alternator/clutch cover off, to find it didn't look too bad under there....some corrosion,but it looks like the primary chain is low mileage, the sprockets on the clutch basket look good as well as the engine sprocket. Haven't tested the alternator windings yet, but they looked good and the rotor had good magnetism going...
The PB Blaster loosened things up...
a little out of focus...
Things came apart easily..
After a quick cleaning with a small wire brush, note cracked fin...
Same damage viewed from side before pulling the head. Didn't have to worry about breaking or cracking any fins, someone else had already done it for me. It helps to know where to tap and where not to when working on motors...I'll be honing my aluminum welding skills soon...
Luckily the piston was low on the stroke, and the piston was near the bottom of the cylinder. Sprayed some 'PB-Blaster' into the cylinder for luck...
Supported the barrel base with a block of wood, gave the piston a few light taps with a large brass drift I made years ago just for such stuff...not hard, just a few taps to maybe shock the rings loose a bit. Then took a wood block and tapped with a hammer...and, lo and behold the piston started moving downwards in the bore....cool. Didn't take a lot of force. The mix of acetone and tranny fluid with a skosh bit of PB seemed to do the trick...
The piston didn't look too bad, and if I can get the rings out of there...just might run again.
Looks to be an .080" over size piston, time to see if I can scare up some rings...
Things came to a screeching halt on the kicker cover....some one had bludgened the retaining bolt on the kicker, so I quit there...and hope to resume tomorrow morning...
Next, the fourth and final post of the CJMC show and swap.
