THE AGONY OF MY near DEFEAT

When I bought this 1972 450CR off of Craigslist, I had no idea the ordeal that I would have to endure to pull the cylinder head. The cylinder head came off with a little persuasion, but there was no way that the cylinder and sleeve was coming off... ever...ever...ever (did I say ever?) !



First, a little history. I saw this bike listed on Craigslist for two hundred dollars and I instantly snapped it up. I took a big chance and sent the Iowa farmer who owned it, cash in a FedEx envelope (don't do that - that was stupid!) and he gave me a call to tell me he received the money – what a relief.



The man I bought the bike from stated that it belonged to his stepson who abandoned it up against a fence post, which bordered a plowed field. That there it stood for thirteen years through rain, snow, hot weather, dust covered from summers of crop cultivation without the slightest bit of attention being paid to it.

I arranged to have the bike picked up in September but the bike never arrived in California until after Christmas. You see, the bike was doing the US tour. It went from Iowa to Maine, then all the way down the east coast to Florida, up to Chicago, down to New Mexico and finally to Orange County, California. It arrived late at night and I had to drive to a local shopping center to pick it up from the moving company.



When the bike arrived, I got right to it, stripping everything down and refurbishing every nut, bolt and every painted surface bar none. Nothing was spared, everything was refurbished including new bearings, seals, bushings, etc . If it had a hint of rust or corrosion, it received the full treatment.

But I did one thing that I should not have done. I restored everything except the engine, waiting until the end to tackle that job. Hindsight tells me that if I did it all over again, the engine would be the first thing I tackle. With Puckerbush's assistance, we started in on the engine. He rebuilt the engine and I sort of played the Vanna White role – watching, smiling and handing over the tools, nuts and bolts. But seriously, what would I have done if the engine was opened to reveal a bin of fractured gears with no hope of a rebuild? I would have been screwed, blued and tattooed!



Well, we tried to pull the cylinder and sleeve off the engine but it would absolutely not come off. It was if it was welded solidly on the transmission case. So I tried a number of methodologies to remove the cylinder.I managed to buy every concoction on the market: WD-40, PB Blaster, rust remover this, rust destroyer that. Nothing worked. So I took it to my friendly neighborhood engine shop to have them drop the engine, lock, stock and barrel into their ultrasonic cleaner. Rueben, the mechanic let the engine rock-n-roll in the tank for three full days. After fishing the engine out of the tank, he tried to remove the cylinder studs with his impact tool and failed miserably, time after time.

The next thing I tried was more penetrating fluid of every known variety. I mixed up some acetone and automatic transmission fluid, which I believe has superior penetrating qualities but still, it couldn't loosen the studs or the cylinder. No way, Jose! I double-nutted, triple-nutted and even tried Obeah and Baaku, spreading chicken blood and tootsie rolls around the cylinder head for four days… but it was still a no go!
So I tried the JL method and zip tied a large piece of steel to the cylinder head. The point was to put one foot on the cylinder and smack the hell out of the steel block affixed to the top of the studs in an effort to pound the cylinder right off of the studs. No matter how hard I smacked the top of the studs withmy twelve pound sledge hammer, nothing happened except the cylinder studs started to bend.

I even got desperate and took the engine to southern California’s world renowned broken tap and cylinder stud removal company and all they did was snap off two studs and twist a third to the point of fracturing. The all-knowing stud removal boys told me to saw off the cylinder at which point I replied that I would get it off without resorting to that crude method. I also asked if they would be interested in finding out how I do it after I got it off. Of course, one of the victorious machinists stated that he wasn’t interested. The other said, “Hell yes, I want to know how you’re going to do it!” I looked at the know-it-all slub and told him his colleague was a smart man.

I thought long and hard about my next step or two and fabricated two separate device to aid in my now blood feud with this engine. I made a device that would screw onto the cylinder head attachment brackets, which screwed down the cylinder sleeve in an effort to push the bottom off of the cylinder studs… that did not work.

It’s important to note that the entire six months I was engineering wild and whacked-out tools to remove the cylinder, I continued to juice the stud holes with penetrating rust busters. So I decided to get serious and I fabricated my crowning glory-machine of infinite strength and beauty. It used a twelve ton jack to try and pull the cylinder and sleeve off of the studs. When I first used the device, all of the motorcycle guys in my neighborhood insisted on being there to watch the cylinder pop up in the air like Mount Vesuvius. Guess what, it was painful to watch, but it didn’t work! IT FREAKING DIDN’T WORK! This one gutted me and it gutted me in front of all of my motorcycle neighbors. This machine took me all weekend to manufacture and I failed utterly and I did it with great gusto and misery. I was gutted. So the engine sat on my bench for four and a half months while I took to the internet to find a replacement if I decided to admit defeat to this inanimate object. I hated this engine with all my strength and fiber. I imagined it to be Clark Sminkman, the Bozo who tried to swipe my main squeeze in school. I started to hear his taunting as if the sound emanated from the hollow of the cylinder sleeve. I imagined his silver-capped tooth grinning at me like that inbred hill-billy who stared at Warren Beattie in Deliverance.

As an architect, I tend to sleep-dream solutions to my building challenges and one night. I had that all important “Eureka Moment.” I would weld up a couple of stud tool by welding some old sockets to a couple of pieces of 1” x 1” square steel tubing. I would then attach one of the two socket tools on to a one inch square concrete vibrator and wire it on. I would slip the stud sockets over newly welded-on nuts on the now butchered studs.

My thesis was that if I hung the engine cylinder side down off the end of my bench, I should be able to shake the studs loose or break the transmission all to hell as a result. Quite frankly, I wanted it to work, but I was ALMOST to the point of not giving a raht’s ass as to the final outcome of my now six month ordeal. So that’s what I did.

Contrary to what everyone might think, the cylinder studs were full of concrete hard farmer dust from years of exposure to the plowed fields and didn’t exhibit a hint of penetration by any of the rust destroyers. The particles that came out were rock like and were resistant to absorbing PB blaster. But I kept stepping on my foot switch and letting the concrete vibrator continue to shake the living hell out of the engine studs until,,, guess what, it worked! I was able to drive the cylinder off with a rubber mallet. The studs were destroyed but at least I got the bloody things off. I did some research and found that Volkswagen air cooled cylinder studs were perfect matches for the original Hoosk-varna studs.

So after almost six and a half months of pure hell, the engine came apart and the transmission proved to be most beautimous! It was a total pain in the ass, but as I continued to invest more and more capital in the engine, I became more and more resolved in getting that cylinder off of the transmission cases come hell, high water or wild African bees.

Thank you Puckerbush for your engine building skills and thank you Huskydoggg (wherever you are) for the new sleeve, connecting rod and piston….

" A" for effort.

More shots in progress... you can see the rock hard concrete dust that failed to absorb any penetrant.

The broken Husqvarna studs were replaced with air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle engine studs - same size, same length.

Congrats for getting it off.

I t's getting there...



Desmo

i feel your pain mate! had a good chuckle too, i'm currently in the same predicament and mine is drowning in a bucket of diesel.......

Thanks for posting up and giving me the encouragement to fight on, and the tip on the studs will be priceless, thank you!

You know I thought about using a concrete vibrator once.

Good news and she's looking sweet!

Your hard work will pay off and you have a heck if a story to tell!

A very good read and excellent ingenuity, fair play i think i would of resorted to hacking the thing off!

I had a very similar experience with my 450cr.

Should have started the engine first! I am still sourcing parts that are long gone. Slowly it is coming together.

It took a couple of months to find a piston and ring. The stub shafts on the crank shaft are pitted and I haven't been able to source anything that looked any better.

Have a second and fourth gears that don't look like they will stay engaged.

Every now and then I consider moving on to another project and giving up on this one...it's a real money pit.

I had the "money pit" syndrome with the 390 Auto I have just finished. It fought me all the way. You have just got to forget the money and do it for the love of it. I now have one of the best bikes I have ever ridden. Best of all, I am proud to ride it. The money doesn't enter my head (don't tell the wife !).
Just keep going. The more it fights you, the more you will fight it. At the end of the day you WILL win. That will make the difference how you feel about the bike when you take it out.

Great read! Congrats on sticking with it, I guess you showed old Clark Stinkman in the end!!!