Thursday, February 24, 2011

Removing Crusted Clutch Cover - Ya-mama-ha XS650 Engine


 The crusted on old clutch cover. Getting this off was so much fun. Even though crusty it's not in bad shape considering.

 Had to take a very small screw driver to get dirt and caked on oil out of the Allen heads then soak them all with what? PB Blaster of course before even thinking about trying to turn them.


 All in all, four screw heads were, err, screwed up and rounded off inside. The screw heads had to be drilled off. Wanna know how much fun that was? Nah, I doubt it, but it took titanium coated drill bits to do it. The screw extractors wouldn't get it there to access them.  


 The kick starter shaft had a rubber plug over it (Already removed here) which holds moisture in like crazy. If your going to use one, the shaft end it and rubber cap should be coated with Vaseline ( Which makes a great hand cleaner under finger nails too plus aids in getting O-rings and rubber hoses installed) to help keep rust off. Otherwise it's just a moisture and rust factory. Soaked the seal and shaft with my new found friend PB who?

 Success finally with some coaxing of a rubber mallet and plastic hammer. If you look at the left top corner of the cover you can see the starter spring, shaft and gear still in the cover. Could this be why the previous owner removed the kick starter? Instead of the cover coming off of the shaft , the whole shaft, gear, spring and all came off with it.
All in all, the components behind the cover looked remarkably well and clean. Nothing has been cleaned up at all before taking this picture. Now what is needed is to remove that clutch with a clutch tool. Can't wait to get the cylinders off and to split these cases so I can get to that bent shifter shaft. Hoping the bottom end looks as well as this section.

2 comments:

Willy D said...

What do you plan on putting the engine on?

WooleyBugger said...

This is one of Billy's engines we are trying to save. He has a Brat style frame and a hardtail he's building engines for. We're starting to think this engine will wind up as a mock-up engine.