A year gone by, time to get back at it.
It's hard to believe that I let over a year go by since doing anythign on this project. My last post was back in October of 2010, and that was the first in months. So what's the hold up? In a word: work. I'm rejoined the ranks of a team and project that I love (Xbox), so it's easy to let all of my extra time that doesn't go to family funnel into work. While that may sound like a bad thing, I actually consider myself incredibly lucky to work on a project that I love with people that I enjoy working with.
Balance is important, though, and hobbies like this project are an important thing to balance in. With the holiday coming up, I'm hoping to get back into the project more regularly. Ideally, I'd like to have the motor running by January. That's a stretch, but we'll see.
To start toward that, I began some general cleanup on the exterior of the crankcase. The cylinder is still pulled and all oil drained. I'll flush the crankcase when I'm done. Here's how the crankcase looks with 40+ years worth of gunk on it:
I spent about an hour just cleaning it off. Haven't used any solvents other than elbow grease, but it is beginning to clean up pretty well:
Next weekend, I'll try to get the crankcase thoroughly cleaned and get the cylinder and head back on. That shoudl be easy provided I can figure out a gasket. After that, this poins have to be replaced:
I already have a new set, but am shopping for a cover for them. All of the ones on eBay are pretty beat up and I haven't seen any NOS anywhere yet. I'm hoping beyond hope that I don't need to dissamble the crankcase. It looks to be in good shape as-is and it'd save me a lot of time to leave it in tact.
