The End Of The Road or a new beginning . . . . . .

[Freddy]

That scoring you found IS something to worry about.   

[Javaman]

After much dithering. I finally decided to go down the drain plug route to remove the liners and ordered one this morning off eBay.
I couldn’t face any more valve work and so set about cleaning up the gasket face on the block before a bout of insane enthusiasm had me decoking the pistons - after all that effort, I just hope they’re not cracked!!!! 😂😂

Finnigans Walter White CokeAway - Spray it on and let it soak for ten minutes and then wipe off with a soft cloth.
(I wish!!! 😂)

[Sidewinder]

If you can't feel it with a fingernail i'd hardly call it 'scoring'

[Javaman]

Originally Posted by Sidewinder

If you can't feel it with a fingernail i'd hardly call it 'scoring'

Yes - poor choice of word. . . . Slight wear marks would be more accurate. I’ve looked closer at the marks I thought were small scags but now of the view they are very small corrosion pits in the liner wall.
I’m very keen now to pull the pistons and find out one way or the other what is going on. Hopefully, compression loss was down to valves only

[Paul2bikes]

Awful lot of crud in those combustion chambers for such low miles, unless it's been; using oil, rich mixture, or both. Sort of thing we used to see in our old Brit iron back in the day.

[Freddy]

Originally Posted by Sidewinder

If you can't feel it with a fingernail i'd hardly call it 'scoring'

How it's described doesn't matter.  It indicates that further dismantling is necessary to examine the pistons.   

I've never heard of that Finnigans stuff.     You and it did a great job     but I would have waited until the pistons are out.   

[Javaman]

My drain plug tool arrived this morning and I have ordered some threaded rod and a few nuts etc in order to convert it into a liner puller and so hopefully, I will be ready to remove the pistons by the weekend.
Meanwhile, I spent my downtime removing all the valves, bagging them up and am now applying some elbow grease into cleaning the carbon off the cylinder heads before lapping in the valves and pressure-testing the head.
My cheapo Chinese valve compressor worked OK but I was very conscious that one slip could spell disaster. I lined the bucket cylinders with a mylar wrap to protect them and then one by one, gradually removed each valve.
I was uncertain about whether or not to retain the existing valve stem seals as the bike hasn't been burning oil but there's always the small chance of having scagged one whilst removing the valves and for the sake of another £50, have decided to replace them all on reassembly.
To a greater or lesser extent, all the exhaust valves had carbon deposits on the seats. . . . Courtesy of eBay, I have bought a "chemico" lapping set comprising a rubber sucker and some coarse and fine lapping paste. A quick check revealed this to be 80 grit and 220 grit. The seats look in pretty good order and with no obvious pitting and so I suspect even the 220 grit will be a little too coarse. I have since  found a supplier who will provide all grades up to 1200 grit. The provisional plan is to start off with 220 grit and thereafter, 400, then 600, and finally 1000 grit before leak-testing the head. I have a Baldrick plan for the latter which might prove interesting . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, if the worst comes to the worst and the pistons are toast, I have decided to cough up the readies and rebuild the thing regardless of cost. I want to keep the bike and also . . . . I want to get to the bottom of the wretched slow crank - it's only money

Note the mylar sleeve inserted into the bucket cylinder to protect it. The tool slipped once or twice and so it served its purposed admirably. It's very important to spend time getting the tool on square, before tightening - both on the valve stem and the head of the valve itself . . . .



This is around the other side . . on the valve head itself. Although not visible, I cut a 25mm rubber washer out of 2mm sheet and placed it between the tool and the valve head - helps protect the valve but more importantly, helps locate the tool and prevent it slipping off to one side



To a greater or lesser extent, all the exhaust valve seats had a crud on them - I find it a little bizarre really - this stuff isn't baked on but is more loose and shale-like. . . much the same as the stuff on the piston crowns. I think I need to spend more time exploring the upper reaches of my tachometer!!!



Nothing left to do for now except spend hours and hours and hours, converting this to . . .



this . . . .

[Freddy]

No need to lap the valves so many times if they are in good nick.  Water mixed is so much easier to use than oil mixed.  I use Medium grade (whatever that is) to lap then, after cleaning the face and seat apply a light smear of bearing blue to the valve face, then slap it into the seat, remove the valve, clean the face, slap it into the seat again, remove and inspect for transfer of blue on valve face.  If you can see an unbroken trace of blue on the full circumference of the face, it's good.

How Are you planning on leak testing them?

[Paul2bikes]

That's a scary looking valve spring compressor, never seen the likes of that one.

Job's going well, let's hope the pistons are all good.

[Javaman]

Apologies for the lack of updates but I've been busy removing valves, cleaning up the head and more recently, making a liner extractor tool and attempting to remove the liners.
I'm not quite sure where to begin because there is bad news to report, or at least . . . potentially bad news.
I will start with the liner extraction.

So, for those of us unwilling to splash out £160 on Triumph's special tool, it seems there are two methods that receive popular support
1. Wrap duct tape around the inside of the liner, hand crank the engine and use the force of the piston to simply drive out the liner and . . . .
2. Make a clone of the Triumph tool using a 3"/75mm steel drain plug tester

I opted for the latter and I'm so glad I did.  . . . . Some folks report pushing out the liners as a simple and straightforward affair and I have come to realise this depends totally upon the security of the silicone seal at the base of the liner - mine were tight, very tight indeed.  I can categorically state that if you attempted method 1 on my engine, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that you would damage the pistons and/or rings. The amount of force required to lift the liners on my engine was massive and of course, the piston would attempt to squeeze past the duct tape and all the force would be taken by the first ring and land.

I purchased the plug, a short length of 12mm threaded rod and glued it into the plug. A washer and a couple of 12mm nuts completed the parts list - total cost from eBay - just under £14.00.  I then set about making a wooden "bridge" which I backed with some sheet rubber to protect the gasket face of the engine block. 
Sadly, my tool didn't perform as expected and despite doing up the plug as tight as  I could, operating the draw nut merely resulted in the plug sliding up inside the liner. Don't get me wrong . . . it was resisting admirably and the amount of force required to move the thing was significant but at the end of the day, it was the plug which moved and not the liner.
I guess I tried about 20 times in total before retiring to sleep on it. . . .

I made another attempt today except this time, I wrapped about two layers of duct tape around the top of the liner and a strip of bicycle inner tube, held in place with double sided tape - I figured that short of reverting to semtex, this had to work!!??   I tightened the draw very slowly and kept the whole thing under significant tension in the expectation the silicone seal would be getting constantly stretched and sooner or later would start to let go and peel free - This seems to be pretty much what happened. After about 5-10 minutes of slowly turning the nut, each liner suddenly let go and it was "job done".
I'm away now for a few days and didn't have time to remove the liners and pistons from the engine but that will be my next job on my return, however, I'm feeling rather despondent about where this whole exercise is leading and I will post and explain separately below.



I was nervous of scratching the bores with the tool. It has a minimum useable diameter of 75mm and goes up to 83mm or thereabouts. To prevent any mishaps, I tightened the wingnut by hand until the rubber was compressed and the tool was a smooth, sliding interference fit in the bore, having previously wiped it down with brake cleaner - this meant there was no chance of metal to metal contact.
The two 12mm nuts are then locked together at the top of the threaded rod and . . . .



 . . . . . . this allows the rod to be held with a spanner whilst the wingnut is turned and the tool tightened in the bore as much as possible. Having done that, the nuts are removed, the bridge placed over the top, before adding a washer and nut and slowly tightening in an attempt to draw up the liner.



20 attempts and some 2-3 hours later and I had made no progress whatsoever and all I had achieved was . . . . . .



To draw the plug up inside the liner and for the liner to remain steadfastly glued to the block



After sleeping on it overnight - this was my next attempt. A couple of wraps of duct tape, followed by . . . .





A length of inner tube, held in place with double sided tape and then the tool inserted below this added restriction. I suspect that even this method won't work if you merely tighten the spanner rapidly. The key is to apply a constant steady force by slow turning of the spanner . . after about 5-10 minutes in each case, the liner suddenly released.



This picture shows the tool in use but as always, I overlooked something . . . . Having released the central liner and raised it a couple of millimetres, it then meant my tool wouldn't sit square on the head - hence the randomly inserted pieces of thin plywood to raise the tool above the liner. Duh . . bit of an oversight but hardly a problem - I could have bashed the thing back in with a rubber mallet