TOPIC:

Right, thank you all for your suggestions.

Oz has come back to say he doesn't trust the valves in his block and all the other blocks worth looking at are in USA, so postage etc. will bump the price up without actually having a guarantee that they are not bent either.

Getor have offered me a full set at £260 delivered. Those are all new and people on the forum have had good experience with them. That will cost about the same as buying a used block in USA, so I have decided to go with that. At least I have peace of mind that these are new and there is no kerfuffle with shipping lumps of iron around.

Now I just have to install and time them properly!

... can I be trusted?? (my wife says no!)

Paul

Getor valves turned up today. They are looking good!

This afternoon I'll drop them off at the machine shop and then it is waiting for the head to come back.

Paul

I was just looking at facebook, and now reading this I got confused not finding the 'like' button! hahaha

Great arrival and just like I said earlier - they work great on my bike! You will be happy with them.

Purists look away please!

My Kawasaki 1100 Zephyr tank arrived, so I tried it on the frame. Fits almost perfectly! The tank front lobes go perfectly over the rubber bungs on the frame, I just need to lower the rear edge a little and then I think it will be perfect.

Mock up attached.



My Citroen Traction headlamp is on its way from France. 22cm dia torpedo shell... can wait to mock that up!

Nice rain drop silhouette. With that seat I don't think you need cutting down the frame. Unless going for a 'chopper' look.

Ok, got the head back with new valves:

In the process of inserting the valves they scratched the paint so I had to give it a quick touch-up, but I can't bake it (as it has new valve rubbers) so have to be careful from now until the engine runs and it can bake whilst running.

Got the head back on and properly timed this time It all runs smoothly when I turn the engine by hand. Back to where I was two months ago!

Now the next issue is shimming. Obviously with new valves that all went out and here are the new measurements:

Cylinder no 1 2 3 4 5 6
exhaust shimsize 245 235 245 255 240 255
clearance 0 0 0.05 0 0.05 0 Needs to be 0.15-0.25
intake shimsize 240 230 235 225 220 245
clearance 0 0 0 0 0 0 Needs to be 0.05-0.15

I think what I'll do is measure all the exhaust ones with the one 220 I have and see what that gives. For the intake I can also use the 220, but cylinder 4 and 5 worry me as I'm not sure how far down the shim sizes go.... I'll need a 210 or maybe even a 200.

Stan will advise me again to get the valve stems ground.... I did think about that, but there was no way of knowing that that needed to be done before the stems were in the head, and the head on the block...

Paul