New-to-me 1987 R80RT Project

[Mike Wilkins]

P.P.S handy tip

I carried out this process with the tank resting on an old motocross tyre, which fitted perfectly over a plastic dustbin. This was perfect considering all the flushing out between steps. And a heat gun speeds up drying out water

 

[gog]

Cheers Mike. I have a large plastic tub that the tank rests on nicely and allows quick and easy drainage, seems to do the job well. Ill take the tip of the heat gun for the final dry, after what im assuming will be a fair few drainings.

Weather supposed to be decent tomorrow, hopefully get some work done, will post some pics as I go along.

 

[gog]

Well - the weather was good. So much so, that I got talked into taking the kids to Blair Drummond Safari Park for the day on Saturday instead of working on the bike. Full day riding lesson on Sunday, so nothing yesterday either.

I did take a few hours on Saturday evening to tinker about though.

Decided to remove the rocker covers to see if I could pinpoint what was making that metallic bang. Turns out it didnt take long as I first removed the left cover and saw this:

The adjuster on the exhaust valve was so far out of position that the pushrod could slip out of the cup. I know that was what was banging, because the inside of the cover showed this:

Oh dear. It doesnt look like anything is bent or broken though, so im hoping that no real damage has been done. The pushrod still appears to be straight and theres nothing scraping or catching in its travel.

I readjusted the adjuster and tightened the locking nut properly. Ill pick up a feeler guage and adjust them properly before trying to fire the bike up again.

The other side appeared to be properly adjusted - tiny amount of clearance between rocker and valves, ever so slightly more on the exhaust side but from what I have read, thats normal.

No nasty residues that I can see in either side. They look roughly the same shade of discolouration both sides, its just the light in the photos that makes them look different:

The electrics are a bit of a mess, and i suspect that much of that mess is left over from when the fairing was removed. There are wires that go nowhere, and loom ends that have some wires in use, and others hanging loose. In this first pic, the red hanger has about 5-6 green wires and at least 4 of them end in bare connectors. One runs to the back of the subframe and goes nowhere, others snaked around the engine bay and 2 towards the headlight cluster. Im not sure if any of them are connected to anything at all and the whole thing could possibly be removed.

... and some of the other loose wires:

Looking at the back of the bike - which I had not noticed before - the exhausts are not parallel to each other. At all. It looks like someone has welded makeshift brackets (not treated to rustproof obviously!).

The cans themselves and also the brackets dont look bent, but I wont know for sure until I remove them. Im really hoping that its not something warped on the frame thats causing this.

The back wheel spins true to the frame so at least I know the whole back end isnt buckled.

Anyway, the light ran out at 10pm and I had to put it (loosely) back together and pack up for the day. Progress is slow and I seem to uncover more problems each time I set out to fix anything! I suppose thats all par for the course.

 

[Kenny]

Why on earth anyone would want to bodge the rear footrest hangers like that is beyond me

That tappet did look out of adjustment

Keep up the photos ...and good luck with those exhaust hangers

 

[gog]

I hadnt realised until you said 'bodged' that they had been cut. I just assumed someone had used a home-made bracket attached to the original fixings. bugger.

Looks like I will need to make some new, neater brackets to replace whats been cut off the frame, grind off that crap thats welded to the cans and hope that the original mounting holes are in-tact. I know that it was done before the bike came to my Dad, so i dont know who's to blame for that shameful job.

Another one to add to the 'to do' list

 

[John Roberts]

In the fourth photo it appears that the top end the upper head stud that holds the exhaust rocker shaft has been sawn off and also that there is a lot of thread protruding through its nut on the corresponding lower stud. Why would that be, I wonder?

 

[gog]

I see what you mean there John, and hadnt noticed it before. Cheers for pointing it out.

Does anyone have any idea why this might have been done and what effect it could have or problems it could cause?

 

[gog]

Please tell me those are not horribly stretched head bolts...

 

[John Roberts]

The saw-cut end seems well blackened which could mean that it may have been like that for a while, though you did say it had been left standing for a while?? Are they are the original studs or could they be from another engine of a different size i.e. with a slightly longer stroke perhaps? I'm clutching at straws here, actually, and the thought of the studs pulling out has never even crossed my mind...

Good luck.

 

[John Roberts]

Please tell me those are not horribly stretched head bolts...

I suspect they would pull out before they stretched. On the other hand if they had pulled out that much they would have let go completely, or, at least, the head gasket would have blown.

I'll shut up and stop speculating and let the folks that know take over... Good luck, as I said.

PS
Just a thought... I wonder if the studs have pulled out of the block some time in the past and that they (the threads in the block) have been repaired with Timesert or something and that they don't screw in quite as far as they did before? Fingers crossed for you.

 

[gog]

It does seem rather odd, doesnt it.

On the other side, each of the 4 bolts seem to have 3 threads sticking out past the bolts, all seem pretty uniform.

On this dodgy side, theres practically nothing protruding out through either of the inlet bolts, and the exhaust side bottom looks like 4-5 threads and the top one just sawn off. Who knows how much was removed!

I have no real idea of the bike's history before it came to my Dad in 2008, except that its a US import and is ex-police TIC. I would have thought that police mechanics would have been pretty competent, though have little to base that on - for all I know they could be complete hacks and run the bikes into the ground with as little maintenance as possible.

I will inspect everything tomorrow evening and see if I can see any obvious reason for the differences.

 

[Kenny]

Please tell me those are not horribly stretched head bolts...

Try torquing all six head nuts down ( should be 28 lbs/ft ) and see it those exhaust nuts keep turning..if they do keep turning, it is helicoil time ! Then again if no current oil leaks, may well be best to leave it as be !!

 

[gog]

Im tempted to just leave them alone to be honest - no oil leaks at all, although the cylinder compression hasnt been tested yet.

On another note, theres a very real possibility im going to need a new seat...

I cut off the kicked up end of the base pan as im not going to be using the cowling and have no real need for a large pillion space other than for occasional use. Was planning to reshape the existing foam but turns out it had already been altered - badly. Its also brittle around the edges, mouldy and generally knackered.

Going to clean up the base pan, remove the rusted old fittings and spray it black, then fit new fixings (reusing hinges and locking pin). Taking it to a local upholsterer shortly to get a quote for new foam and covering.

Spanner arrived today to remove the exhaust nuts (easier said than done) so will see how i get on with that this weekend.

 

[Kenny]

With the luck you are currently having..those exhaust flange nuts won't budge !!
Start spraying some plus-gas in them asap ( WD40 is shite ) ..then when the time comes in a day or so to remove them, pour boiling water over the nut ( or use hot air gun ) and see if they remove !! Sometimes a sharp thwack on the spanner with a lump hammer will shock them free but as already discussed on here many times, if the flang nut doesn't budge, you'll have to chisel them off ( quite easy to do ) and order a couple of £10 replacements

 

[Packer]

Enough heat and they'll move. Either undo or melt into a little puddle on the floor.

That stud does look like a bodged replacement, best not look too deeply.

 

[gog]

Bit more work done at the weekend, no pics though - phone was dead and by the time i realised, I was too manky to go hunting for the charger.

Got a feeler guage and adjusted those valves to .004 inlet and .008 exhaust. Replaced rocker cover gaskets with new.

Changed oil and oil filter (carefully).

Installed new bullet style rear indicators. All lights working now except the absent tail/brake light which is due to arrive in next few days along with new steel rear mudguard.

Stripped and cleaned the carbs. Didnt have replacement gaskets, o-rings or needles but thankfully what was there seemed good enough to reuse. Any problems and ill get the rebuild kit. Will do next service anyway, regardless.

Installed new spark plugs. Got very confused when the HT leads wouldnt press on to new ones until i realised I had to unscrew and remove the wee metal cap.

No time to do electrolysis on tank, so got the worst of the crud out by rinsing with fuel, draining and repeating. After 3 repeats, it was seeming pretty clean and flow from petcocks free and clear.

Put it all back together and turned on the fuel. Left carb starts pissing all over the floor. Bugger. Fuel back off.

Decided to see if she would start on the fuel in the bowls and she fired right up, both cylinders, and settled nicely to idle at 1k rpm. Seems smooth enough with some revs. Thought it worth a try to turn fuel back on in case the floats had just been stuck and now theres no more fuel leak.

Turned off the engine, left fuel on for a bit, still no leaks. May get away with it after all.

Noticed that what I thought was the oil light was on all the time at the 1k rpm idle and went off straight away as soon as any throttle applied. After I had put bike away for the night, I googled this and got worried. I do need to check tonight though that what I was maybe actually looking at was the GEN light, not the oil light. Fingers crossed.

 

[Paul Rochdale]

With the luck you are currently having..those exhaust flange nuts won't budge !!
Start spraying some plus-gas in them asap ( WD40 is shite ) ..then when the time comes in a day or so to remove them, pour boiling water over the nut ( or use hot air gun ) and see if they remove !! Sometimes a sharp thwack on the spanner with a lump hammer will shock them free but as already discussed on here many times, if the flang nut doesn't budge, you'll have to chisel them off ( quite easy to do ) and order a couple of £10 replacements

Personally I wouldn't ever try to force the exhaust 'nuts' off. They are so cheap and the alloy so soft that I followed someones tip given to me a while ago and drilled a line of small holes across the nuts between the fins, then with a sharp tap with a sharp chisel, the nuts split I was able to lever the the split apart and removed the nuts. This resulted in undamaged threads on the heads which just needed tiding up with a tiny file. New nuts and Copaslip every year from then on.

 

[gog]

Cheers Paul. To be honest if they dont come off right away with very little brute force, im going to cut most of the way through with my dremel than split them with a chisel and replace that way.

I noticed yesterday and forgot to mention, but the exhaust pulses are far stronger from the left exhaust than the right. Both cylinders are def firing, so im hoping its just leaks or blockages in the exhaust system or uneven workings in the collector which I can fix when I get around to the exhausts (next job).

Hopefully its not a cylinder problem, Ill be looking sooner rather than later to have the compression tested.

 

[gog]

Quick question - I have seen many airhead customs with shorty exhausts clamped straight to the downpipes, bypassing the collector box altogether, with no crossovers at all.

Since my exhausts are knackered, and i suspect the collector box is rusted almost through, is this a viable option? Will it not mess with the running of the bike, having each cylinder exhaust straight to its own muffler?

 

[Kenny]

It won't be as 'refined' but in your case ( and plenty of the 'bobbed' ones on Ebay seem to have separate silencers) ..so I'd go for it
Won't make any difference to fuelling etc...one of those 'suck it and see' mods !