We all have problems with our motorized bike projects, they are in constant need to attention and in other words tinker toys. Always needing adjustment constantly, these things from some people are a good way to learn mechanical acuity but for others can be just down right frustrating and annoying.
Re-doing the same things over and over with no positive results can be discouraging at first but when you finally get it right it feels great, well until the next enviable thing goes wrong.
Today I went to talk about a few things I find superbly annoying and I hope you share your frustration stories with me as well.
First and most prevalent problem I have it simple. Air leaks, we all get them and we all know how hard they are to keep in check. My solution for it is simple but takes a lot more time and that's you use RTV ultra copper gasket maker since it offers maximum heat, gas and oil resistant over all the RTV gasket-makers.
I find the gaskets the come with these engines to be to be nice lacking strength, I always find my gaskets leak no mater how tight and well maintained the engine bolts are. The only gaskets I cannot simply replace with RTV are the head, clutch and magneto simply because I need to adjust the clutch often, the magneto doesn't really need to be replaced often and the head gasket need to be metal to withstand the pressure. However I do RTV the bottom and top of the head gasket to keep leaks to a minimum.
The next problem comes with the bad quality bolts the come with the engine simply put they are just not strong enough to resist tightening and maintenance you have to do in order to keep things leak tight, I recommend replacing all bolts with 40mm and 25mm 1.0 pitch 12.9 grade M6 socket cap bolts to keep them from snapping. I've used 8.8 hex cap bolts form home depot since I had no idea where to buy those bolts and they simply snap under the tension of the engine pushing back under high torque/ high pressurize/ high temperature conditions.
I find the highest strength grade 12.9 bolts have been top notch with not one broken yet. If you want to know how many you may need of each you can get 20 of each so you have many spares since you may want to replace your sprocket bolts of even make studs to replace striped ones in the future, extra is always better.
I've already had a few strip on me in resent times I've had to replace with studs I've made.
I was working on a new build with used bet good shape parts and it's so frustrating to just have one little thing ruin a otherwise great job. I had a thread on the bottom end strip right out where the top end connect the the crack case, making me have to tear down the engine and replace the other half with another crank case half.
It's just a pain to have to not only have to rebuild an engine twice because of bad quality parts.
Clutch problems are frequent and oh so touchy every engine has a different amount of turns to get a strong grip on the pads. My old engine was 3 turns after hand tightening to max with the arm pulled in and the clutch cable removed, this is how I calibrate the clutch, but sometimes working with a new engine is a pain.
I now know with my new build 5 turns is the needed amount to keep the clutch from slipping.
I hate how downright simple but impossible they dam clutches are, you can spend hours dialing in the right settings and still have to go back for more, thankful I have air tools to keep my hands from falling off.
Getting the god dam sprocket on straight, on my new wheels this was one of the most unnecessarily time consuming thing. The reason was my back wheel did not have the longer cylinder the sprocket fits on before tightening down. Because of this I had to rig a bunch of Popsicle sticks to keep the sprocket from moving from side to side wile tightening and it ended up working great but otherwise it will bob up and down making the chain get loose an then super tight and I just couldn't have that.
This may just be my bike but I hate having my back wheel slip forwards it's due the the kind of bike I have rather than a problem with all builds but having to reset my wheel is very annoying.
That's all I can think of for now, I hope you can share some things with your builds the annoy and frustrate you to no end.
Happy Motoring!
Re-doing the same things over and over with no positive results can be discouraging at first but when you finally get it right it feels great, well until the next enviable thing goes wrong.
Today I went to talk about a few things I find superbly annoying and I hope you share your frustration stories with me as well.
First and most prevalent problem I have it simple. Air leaks, we all get them and we all know how hard they are to keep in check. My solution for it is simple but takes a lot more time and that's you use RTV ultra copper gasket maker since it offers maximum heat, gas and oil resistant over all the RTV gasket-makers.
I find the gaskets the come with these engines to be to be nice lacking strength, I always find my gaskets leak no mater how tight and well maintained the engine bolts are. The only gaskets I cannot simply replace with RTV are the head, clutch and magneto simply because I need to adjust the clutch often, the magneto doesn't really need to be replaced often and the head gasket need to be metal to withstand the pressure. However I do RTV the bottom and top of the head gasket to keep leaks to a minimum.
The next problem comes with the bad quality bolts the come with the engine simply put they are just not strong enough to resist tightening and maintenance you have to do in order to keep things leak tight, I recommend replacing all bolts with 40mm and 25mm 1.0 pitch 12.9 grade M6 socket cap bolts to keep them from snapping. I've used 8.8 hex cap bolts form home depot since I had no idea where to buy those bolts and they simply snap under the tension of the engine pushing back under high torque/ high pressurize/ high temperature conditions.
I find the highest strength grade 12.9 bolts have been top notch with not one broken yet. If you want to know how many you may need of each you can get 20 of each so you have many spares since you may want to replace your sprocket bolts of even make studs to replace striped ones in the future, extra is always better.
I've already had a few strip on me in resent times I've had to replace with studs I've made.
I was working on a new build with used bet good shape parts and it's so frustrating to just have one little thing ruin a otherwise great job. I had a thread on the bottom end strip right out where the top end connect the the crack case, making me have to tear down the engine and replace the other half with another crank case half.
It's just a pain to have to not only have to rebuild an engine twice because of bad quality parts.
Clutch problems are frequent and oh so touchy every engine has a different amount of turns to get a strong grip on the pads. My old engine was 3 turns after hand tightening to max with the arm pulled in and the clutch cable removed, this is how I calibrate the clutch, but sometimes working with a new engine is a pain.
I now know with my new build 5 turns is the needed amount to keep the clutch from slipping.
I hate how downright simple but impossible they dam clutches are, you can spend hours dialing in the right settings and still have to go back for more, thankful I have air tools to keep my hands from falling off.
Getting the god dam sprocket on straight, on my new wheels this was one of the most unnecessarily time consuming thing. The reason was my back wheel did not have the longer cylinder the sprocket fits on before tightening down. Because of this I had to rig a bunch of Popsicle sticks to keep the sprocket from moving from side to side wile tightening and it ended up working great but otherwise it will bob up and down making the chain get loose an then super tight and I just couldn't have that.
This may just be my bike but I hate having my back wheel slip forwards it's due the the kind of bike I have rather than a problem with all builds but having to reset my wheel is very annoying.
That's all I can think of for now, I hope you can share some things with your builds the annoy and frustrate you to no end.
Happy Motoring!
