Finished up the paint on one of the spare valve covers. Although these were raw aluminum from the factory, I've always thought wrinkle black is the 'proper' OEM style finish for an engine bay. At some point, I'll probably add more coats, but this is good enough to sit on a shelf for awhile.
I finally re-adjusted my seat and harnesses as well. It's considerably more comfy now.
Interesting fact worth noting: Of the four different styles of aftermarket seats I have, the Sparco Sprint is the only one that's narrow enough to clear both the sill bars of the roll cage and the transmission tunnel. It's also very comfy for daily driving, and is inexpensive. It's a steel framed seat, so it's definitely heavier than other carbon/kevlar or even fiberglass options, but I'd still highly recommend it for the NA chassis.
Most of my Saturday has been re-organizing the shop and getting rid of the old propane heater. Unfortunately, it isn't going to work in this shop because there's no working chimney. With that out, I can go with a much smaller heater. While I was cleaning up, I figured I'd finally wrap up teardown on a spare gsxr1100 block I had lying around. I knew it had been damaged, I just didn't know how bad it was.
I love these old oil-cooled engines, but when they die, they really go out with a bang ... then lots of clattering ... then valvetrain parts end up in the oil pan. For anyone who hasn't worked on a motorbike engine before, you're seriously missing out. The cylinder jugs are a separate component from the head and block, and the block can be split in half to remove the crank and transmission. It's kind of a fantastic design, not entirely unlike the air-cooled Porsche 911 engines (but much easier to work on).
A couple of valves punched a hole right through the #2 piston.
Then they stopped in the oil pan.
With all the abuse that engine appears to have seen, I don't expect it to be good for anything other than spare casings/covers and accessories. Too bad, but at least now I can box up what's worth keeping and scrap the rest.
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Originally Posted by Martin
