Mindsigh

Eve’s bike (Honda CT110) on the road again

Posted by Jerry on March 19th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Motorcycling

Well I got a bit distracted by St Paddy’s day preparations and fitting the topcase to my own bike, but Eve’s bike fired up today and settled quickly into a steady purr.

What else needed to be done? When I assembled it I aligned the top-dead-centre mark on the crankshaft with the cams leaving the valve tappets just loose enough to move, tightened down all the bolts to the right torque and tried the engine movement without a spark plug and noticed a tight spot and a metallic ticking sound. hmm. Could the valve timing be out? Yup – it could. You see, when I assembled it it was getting dark and what I thought was the dot on the cam sprocket turned out to be a speck of oil.

Today I came at it with a fresh eye and it is the work of only about half an hour to undo the two bolts retaining the cam sprocket and identifying the real dot (actually an engraved small circle) and with the sprocket loose, I was able to flip the cam chain over a few links until the dot was in exactly the right place – aligned with the V mark on the head. It was a quick matter then to replace the relevant covers, give the engine a kick over to hear nothing but smoothly interacting machinery, then change the oil, replace the spark plug, and with two kicks the engine purred into life with a nice quiet smooth new-engine sound. Success!

A few revs and it was apparent that the cam chain was making a little bit of noise, so I adjusted the tension bolt and the engine became even quieter.

First test ride was down to the local service station for fresh fuel and tyre pressure check, and despite the welcome rain the bike performed very well.

And the beauty of it is that it no longer blows smoke, and it has real pulling power. Not bad for my first ever piston change – and it cost only the new piston, rings, gaskets and cylinder machining – you certainly can save a lot by doing it yourself!

Cheers
Jerry

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