TOPIC:

The 1300 is a rare bird,and I'd bet maybe less than half of the 20,000 built are left running. Many were let to sit because people are intimidated by thier complexity. While the 1300 is a complicated engine, and a one-of-a-kind design it is certainly not impossible to rebuild.

Parts availability is a challenge, and it takes research and patience to get the necessary replacements. You can't just go too JEGS or Summit and order all the stuff. That too me was one of the more difficult aspects of job.

Working on the engine was quite fun, it was unlike anything I had ever worked on before. One part car, one part motorcycle, and a dash of formula one...

Thank you all for your valuable input. I appreciate you all taking the time to respond.
I will be starting my initial strip down tomorrow, taking the head and barrels off in situ.
Again I was of two minds as to whether to remove the bottom end from the frame and strip that as well, as when the bike was idling, albeit somewhat roughly initially likely due the plethora of minor issues cumulating in the poor idle, the primary/secondary chains seemed to be making some flapping chain type noises ( sorry best analogy I can come up with).
Once I had the idle settled down this cleared up.
I agree with Tyler, if I am going to do this then I need to it properly, therefore I will strip the entire engine and check everything, evaluate from there.
I would rather take my time and have something that is going to last and be a joy to ride than have something I would waiting to break down on me.
The second chapter begins.......

Hi all,

Just a quick update, finally got my barrels back on. What a mission that was. I thought that I would do the right thing and get the proper piston support tools to make the job easier. I also invested in some nice small ring compressors which I thought would be an asset to the job. NOT.....
Long story short aided by my beautiful side kick...... my wife, we ventured into the workshop filled with excitment and anticipation.

So pistons are set up on the conrods, nice new rings attached, piston supports and ring compressors deployed. The time had come to lower the barrels. What ensued can only be best described as disastrous. Holders didn't hold, compressors didn't compress and it sadly went south from there.

After a short time it became abundantly clear it was time to p@$$ off the genuine tools and soley rely on good old fasioned tenacity, so armed with nothing more than a handful of screw drivers a soft mallet and time we set about slowly dropping the barrels down onto the centre pistons. In what seemed like no time at all all the pistons were in there appropriate bores. Awesome......but no, to good to be true. When it came to dropping the bores to the crankcase it didn't want to go that last littlebit, it was held up on something. A quick check revealed a ridiculous rookies mistake. I had put two dowels in the same spot, one in the barrel the other in the crankcase, stupid, stupid, stupid.
Nothing else to do but take it all apart again, remove the offending dowel, put it in the right place and start all over again.
By this time my son had come home so he got roped in to helping. What a difference a third hand makes.
In no time we had the barrels back on and nipped up in place with the bolts at the back.

Tomorrow sees me putting the timing chain on its sproket and putting the head back on.

Finally some real progress.

Can't thank my gorgeous wife ( the apprentice ) and son enough for their help, it was invaluable.

Glad to hear you are making progress!

Rookie mistakes... nothing worse than having to redo everything you just did. Arrrghh!

I've been there

A bit late now, but in lieu of using an expensive set of piston ring compressors, I've found that wide nylon zip ties and a bit of sheet plastic to widen the contact area works amazingly. Pop them on all the piston rings, and as you lower the block down it pushes off the zip ties and let's the rings slip right into the bores. It still needs two people to do, but it's one less thing to worry about.