CB350 Engine Work Continues

[Work was interuppted for a while when I went overseas to work for a while. I picked up work on the bike when I returned in December.]

I got back the the States on December 15th and from that point on it was birthday after birthday followed by Christmas, so the CB350 engine work had to be put off while all the family stuff was addressed. Christmas over, I am once again turning my attention back to the little motor.

I had thoughts of having the valves checked and attended to while the whole thing was apart, even though I had not had any performance issues with the engine before it wads disassembled. Not having the tools to do this myself, I called Harry at Lesmetts, but he declined the work, not having the stuff needed for working on such a small motor. I called Stamey's, another local shop with a good reputation, and although they would do the work, it would have to wait until after New Year's. Chatting with the guy on the phone, I mentioned that I was thinking of doing it just because it was apart, but that I really had no reason to supsect problems with the valves. He suggested seeing if they were leaking by pouring mineral spirits on the top side and seeing if any leaked through. If nothing came through I could assume the valves were sealing properly. If they did, then I would forego the valve work.

I spent a bit of time today in the garage with the 350 motor and tested the valves with the mineral spirit trick—sure enough, not a leak to be found. One less thing to deal with before resassembly. I leanred long ago to not fix things that were not broken.

While I was gone, the complete engine gasket set, engine seal set, new rings, and other bits and pieces had arrived, so the assembly could begin. But first there was the matter of flushing the motor of all the gunk the cam chain guide and adjuster had left in the crankcase.

You can see the kind of broken plastic and metal shavings debris that was still in the motor. Also, the oil pump was pulled and the very dirty screen was cleaned.

Today, I rigged a pan and poured diesel fuel through the crankcase through all available orifices and poured it back out along with a lot more debris. I poured in more diesel, then blew compressed air through all the oil passages. Over and over I flushed until I got a clean crankcase.

My gasket set does not include a gasket for the oil pump to crankcase, so I will need to cut that myself, but once that is done I will be ready to reassemble.

Going to be nice to have Old Faithful back again for my Thursday night rides. Luckily, I now have the Savage available for service, as the new ingiter form eBay arrived the day before Christmas and solved the ignition problems, so I have a rider while work proceeds.

Road Dog

"Ride Your Own Ride"