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Months ago, my friend Zsolt asked if I had any garage space to spare for a handful of weeks. Seems that while he was out in California, his KTM 560SMR’s top-end bushing had went south, and he was in need of a rebuild. “Of course! In fact, why don’t you just do the whole assembly here?”

Zsolt introduced me into the world of Supermoto racing shortly after I bought my Husqavarna SM510. “Come to the track! Do a practice session, and see how you like it!” He knew what he was doing, as shortly after I found myself buying race plastics and 5″ racing wheels. Now I had a chance to let the pendulum swing and repay him for my countless inquisitions during the previous season, simply by giving him a garage door opener and a brief introduction to the ancient French coal stove that keeps the shop warm during the coldest months of the year.

Tirelessly he would show up during the week, and on weekends to work on his motor. As time allowed, I’d sit in a queen-mary chair passed down to me from my grandfathers law office, drinking coffee and pestering him while he worked. A perfectionist with an unyielding attention to detail, Zsolt would inspect, clean, inspect and clean every single part he touched. Every bolt was cleaned, and measured before anything was done with it. Mating surfaces we’re cleaned, planed, cleaned, inspected, and then cleaned again. He went through contact cleaner like he owned stock in the company, the garage in constant risk of going up in flames every time I’d light up in the haze of CFC fumes. Bearings and other parts, became a common sight in the freezer where the coffee was kept. Gradually, I watched as the motor came back together in perfected segments, until sitting on the bench was a complete motor with brand new internal parts. The KTM Racing logo emblazoned on the side of the clutch cover gleaming in the dim shop light. Could have been a brand-new crate motor from Austria, it looks that good.

Sunday, I helped him put the motor and swingarm on the bike and then set up the 900SS in a corner to finish connecting things. I halfheartedly worked on the 900SS, while Zsolt built the bike up from box of parts in a day. Halfway through the day (six hours of straight work on Zsolt’s part) he hit the only snag in the rebuild. The kickstarter assembly was in backwards. Frustrated, we shot to the local pub and talked tech over a few pints, and then headed back with clear(er) heads. Four hours later, Zsolt was splashing some 93 octane into the tank while I filled the crankcase up with fresh 10w50 oil. After a verbal checklist and the required pre-start smoke, Zsolt jumped on the kickstarter. *Ka-flub-flub-click*. He re-positioned it and jumped again. *Ka-flub-flub-flub-click*. We both figured we needed a few revolutions to get gas up and through the carb. Zsolt gave the bike another kick, and it simply became running. No protest, stammer or shudder. No noises of grave mechanical disappointment, just the smooth and rhythmic tick over of a precision built motor running, perhaps better than it did from the factory.

This is how rebuilds are supposed to go. Things just work the way they should, without hours, days of months of troubleshooting. Weeks of work vindicated by a single moment. I looked at Zsolts immaculate engine, nestled in the steel frame of his SMR, parked next to my 900SS. Under my SS, a few drops of oil from gradual leaks, road grime coating every external facing part of the motor reminds me that maybe my attitude to building motors is a little off.

Where have I been? I’ve been skiing, making extravagant breakfasts with Cyndi, breaking big stones into small stones, sleeping as many hours as the workload allows. Where I havn’t been, is in the garage. Since this blog is mainly based around motorcycles, when there is no motorcycle news, the blog goes widely un-updated. So, I leave you with a picture should you ever wonder what I’m doing. Anytime you ask yourself that question, this picture will give you the answer.

Alright fellow gearheads. The ring gaps we’re all in spec. I cleaned the pistons, and the bores with contact cleaner before I installed them. Good oil flow to the head (except the leaks). Where did I go wrong?

Twenty four years and I still have to learn things the hard way. Luckily I’m used to myself, so I have a backup-plan! Spare set of cylinders, and a JE 11:1 drop-in piston set on its way. Anyone care to place any wagers on the outcome?

A friend told me a story about his service in the Navy. He said while flying a few general-types out to the carrier he was stationed on, some hydraulic fluid was leaking out of a hose above, and fell into the hat of one of the general-types. The general immediately notified the crew-chief about the leak. The crew chief responded with a sly grin “Don’t worry when its leaking! Worry when it stops leaking!”.

The 900SS is back together, for a limited time only. The bike fires up on the first crank, and runs smooth. I may have been a little overzealous retarding the ignition by 3 degrees, as up around 4-5,000 RPM’s, a slight cloud of brown smoke comes out and the exhaust pops a good bit on decel. Considering I haven’t changed the jetting since I took the bike apart, I can only assume that its a degree and a half off or so. When I started it up for the first time, I got so excited to hear the bike roaring, I forgot that I had slackened the oil lines to verify that the oil pump was working right. All it took was ten seconds for a good deal of oil to pour out and all over the place.

I cleaned up all the oil, tightened the lines, put it on the lift to verify that everything was oil-tight. Unfortunately, after three minutes of running, oil was dripping off the forward cylinder onto the exhaust pipe. The vertical cylinder had oil running down the back of the cooling fins. When I measured the freeze plugs, I needed a 12mm and a 16mm. Ducati has 12mm available, but only 17mm (the newer size). I tried to ream out the holes the best I could, but apparently I didn’t do it well enough, as both 17mm freeze plugs are leaking from both cylinders.

So everything has to come back apart. Cylinders need to come off, and now I have to figure out the best way to seal these plugs. Chris at Cycleworks mentioned that a threaded socket plug might be a good replacement to the freeze plugs. Another season slipping away…. time to get busy.

Worked a couple nights this week on the SuperSport, and finally after almost two years, its back to a rolling chassis. I re-fitted the exhaust headers, blew the cobwebs out of the exhaust pipes and fit them up too. I’ve got a bit of a neurosis when it comes to things being symmetrical, so I spent half an hour making sure they lined up right. Re-shimmed the swingarm, torqued down the suspension bits, and bolted up the rear wheel.

I worked from home today (the kitchen table is my favorite office of all!), so when 5:00 rolled around, it was a nice 30 second commute into the garage. I pulled the left-hand engine cover off, and went about adjusting the ignition timing. Even with the bump from 87 to 91 octane, the new pistons push enough compression to knock with the standard ignition settings. The standard is 2 degrees of ignition retard, but (to stay safe) I went with 3. Adjusting the air-gap on the pickup sensors isn’t fun though. Just when you get one right, you pop the other one out of whack.

Still need to get some new copper washers for the oil lines, and flush some fresh fuel through the tank. I also want to roll the engine over by at least fifty revolutions or more and see if I can get some oil circulating through before I press the fire button.

Today a bunch of orange parts littered with german showed up at my door. When I die, my inbox will not be empty.

I’ve been working long hours at work, and late nights in the garage trying to get the 900SS back together in the vein hopes that I’ll reclaim some riding time this summer. I took my time, got both sets of valves adjusted close to perfect, lapped the vales, and thoroughly cleaned the mating surfaces of everything. Next up, was checking the squish.

A few folks that “hop-up” a motor with higher compression pistons, or other “drop-in” kits, usually put them in, button everything up, and call it a day. Down the road, something terrible happens and bits of metal go everywhere. Nobody checks their squish anymore! Checking piston-to-head clearance, and piston-to-valve clearance is a must anytime your putting less-than-stock go-fast bits in your motor. Many people use pieces of solder to check squish. I’ve always been nervous about that, and Ca-Cycleworks has a nice package of clearance wax to use instead.

The wax is nice, because it has a sticky backing on one side, so I don’t have to worry about it moving around as I put everything back together. I started out with OEM base gaskets,, which measure in at .015″. Put both cylinders together, installed and tightened the belts, and rotated the motor as slow as I could. At both power and exhaust TDC’s, I heard the wax stick to the cylinder head. I took everything apart, and was a little unhappy with what I found.

On the vertical head, the .075″ (orange), and .050″ (white) wax both squished up against the head on the far reaching ends of the piston. The .040″ (green) wax barely touched, and measured in at .039″. I was hoping to go with .045 - .050″ of squish as a very conservative number. (I want power, but I don’t need racing power). The horizontal cylinder however, was tight. VERY tight. I measured the squished green wax at .022″ of squish. The biggest base gasket I had was .020, which means I need a much larger gasket for this cylinder, which may also need to be special ordered.

Some very smart old-school chopper folks I know told me to get some copper sheet and simply cut my own. Depending on the turnaround time for new gaskets, I may just do this. I only need one base gasket, and if I make it myself, I can work at my pace. Its nice to see the motor together though, even if I’ll have to put it together and take it apart ten more times before I actually try to start it.

Steve Munro has done it again, unfortunately, for the last time.

What you see above is a custom-racer. Steve builds custom vintage “loudbikes” (as he calls them) for people with the pockets to afford the parts. One-off frames, frankenstein bevel-head Ducati motors with some modern parts, and that timeless look of a bare motorcycle, meant to go fast, and nothing else. Every bike Steve has built, he’s documented through his blog, and while I lack the fundage, or the skills he has to build these bikes like this, I always stop by to marvel at what can happen with a good imagination, and the know-how to make it happen. The attention to detail, custom fabrication, and general “look” of every machine Steve has turned out, was and will always be a mirror image of what a motorcycle should look like to me.

Steve is now going back to the software business, and what you see above is his last creation for customers. While I wish I could keep reading about the fantastic bikes he builds e, I too understand that its frustrating to work on machine’s you won’t be able to afford. Back to the code Steve, but don’t forget to keep it loud, and keep it Italian.

Check Steve out at Loudbike.blogs.com.

Spring has sprung. Leaves and flowers are everywhere, the temperature is perfectly comfortable, and cows around the world are cringing as hamburger consumption has gone through the roof.

It was nice to have a good 10 days of no-racing for a change. Things settled down, and I could spend a weekend with my lady friend, without taking off with a race-ready truck at strange hours in the middle of the night. Saturday I made a jig and welded up 15 T-handles for my racer buddies, and suprised myself with the weld quality (and look). Dad, you we’re right. I’ll never stick weld again, unless I absolutely have to. TIG welding has got to be the slowest, most detailed form of welding, but also the cleanest.

Sunday, I spent some time working on the ugly duckling. The new cylinders have been paitently waiting on my parts shelf for me to pay attention to them. I got the piston ring specs from John Goodwin over at Mahle, and decided it was high time I get a working streetbike together. I set a .021″ gap on the first ring for both cylinders, .016″ for the second “scraper” ring on the horizontal cylinder, and a very conservative .018″ for the second ring on the vertical cylinder. (Vert cylinder gets much hotter, and I don’t want to chance the poly rings welding to eachother). I’m really trying to keep the numbers on this rebuild conservative. I could go all out with the tightest gaps, and the smallest squish I can get away with, but I’m hoping to get some miles out of this rebuild.

In the end, a nice lazy Sunday with the lady, some burgers, an overzealous dog, and the quiet hum of nature during rebirth was just what I needed to calm my nerves. I’m soaking up every second of it, for in two short days… its “once more into the breach”. The race-bike is currently in Bellingham MA getting new triple clamps milled, and test fitted with a 11 degree offset. Friday morning I drive up to the track, and from there I’ve got an oil/filter change, valve adjustment, and a general shakedown of the important components before I go out for practice. Saturday I’ve got the lightweight sportsmen race, and Sunday brings the motard and supersingles races followed by a long drive home and unloading, leading up to a collapse, and a new work week.

A guy at work approached me about doing some fabrication work for him a few weeks back. He’s trying to copy the design of a rather pricey monitor stand, on the cheap. I always enjoy doing work for other people, almost more than I enjoy doing it for myself, especially when they do all the boring work first. Tom was nice enough to sand, grind, measure and mark most of the pieces he needed me to mill/weld/turn. All I had to do is center, chuck, and go!

One piece that gave me trouble was some square box steel he needed me to cut a radius edge on, to match a small piece of barstock. After thinking for a good two hours about the best way to do it, I decided that maybe I could use a flywheel cutter, set to the external diameter of the barstock to very slowly cut a nice radius on the box steel. I’ve got a box full of cutter bits, whats the worst that could happen? I proceeded to make a horrific mess of the barstock, and completely trash two cutting tools. Lesson learned. Next time pony up the dough, get a rotary table, and do it the right way. (Flywheel cutters do not like to cut on edges, and the bits have a tendency to crack off)

After botching the box stock, I resorted to the ancient bench grinder I rescued from my grandfathers basement. Not perfect, but its good enough for government work. I tac-welded the bits together so he could mock everything up, and see if anything needed adjustment. Some blue-moon Belgian beer, microscopic fragments of steel embedded in my fingertips, and a nice UV tan from the TIG welder?

Yep. Today was a good day.

March 11th is the first race practice at E-Town, NJ. So far, I’m horribly behind. I got my number plate in, the valves checked, but not yet adjusted (the left hand intake and exhaust valves are off by .002″). But I’m still lacking a rear wheel, new set of rubbers, and a 6.8kg rear spring. Might not sound like much, but when you see how much is missing, you realize its some very important stuff. If I can’t get the rear spring in time, it wont be the end of the world. I did a practice at OVRP with my stock rear spring, and it wasn’t too bad. But not having the rear wheel would kill me. The “good” supermoto tires come in 160 and 165. I’m pinching the tire pretty good running a 155 on a 4.5″ rim as it is. My shagged Dunlop 208’s that came stock on the bike just won’t cut it.
Kirk @ FactoryPro told me my new 5″ rear wheel should ship the beginning of next week. But thats still a long journey from CA to CT. (Yes, I bit the bullet and paid someone else to lace the wheel. Out of time and running ragged trying to design several parts, I’ll have to learn how to build wheels later).

I’m hoping to get everything buttoned up on the motor before the weekend, finish saftey-wiring the stupid stuff one day this weekend, and wait for the wheel and tires to come in before wiring up the rest.

The 900SS still sits forelornly looking at its motor on the bench. With my luck, the Husky will be ready to race, and we’ll get 2 feet of snow the day before race practice.