e3steve wrote:Right at the top, Ed. Right at the top. Most, if not all, useful knowledge that permeates through most of us is distilled from your sharing and gets added to individual experiences!
On the road again (again)!
Hotshoe, I can understand your reasoning.......to a point. I have the a new project posted a couple of weeks back on a 64 CA77. I am fairly mech inclined and maintain 5 bikes. But this will be a first for me (completely tearing down this 305). Tips on what you have would prevent idiots like me from learning the hard way, kind a of a heads ups. In part this is the beauty of forums like this. The info sharing, what works and doesn't, helping keep the bills lower. In my case there will be things I can't even imagine to ask at this time. It would be nice to be able to plan ahead.
Your points are exactly why I decided to put together sort of a beginner's guide to searching the Forum and preparing a repair guide, I'll post it soon anyway in a separate thread. As I said before, I decided not to post my repair guide out of respect for Forum contributors like Ed and my personal opinion about online plagiarism. However, Ed's post indicates that he wouldn't have a problem with me doing it, though none of the other contributors have voiced an opinion. Let's do this Zoom, if he and the other contributors to the 305 Forum don't object to me posting some sort of a collection of posts that may not reference the author, I'll put something together next week. Attached are the forum posts that I used during my recent top end repairs. As I said before, I collected them for myself so they're a little rough but here they are.
I've also included a few tips that have helped me and might help someone who's new to mechanical work and/or working on 305's. Keep in mind that I'm not an expert and most of what I know I learned by trial and error working on my own engines in the 60's so use any of this at your peril....... - A mechanics stethoscope can be very helpful finding the source of mysterious engine noises and works much better than the old screwdriver trick - Harbor Freight (Tools R Us?) has a good one for $5. - If you're pulling a CL engine - remove the two left cylinder exhaust studs first, it makes it much easier to get it out and back in. - If you're going to lap your valves but don't need to remove the cam shaft and bearings - remove everything you would anyway, then seal up all the openings into the cam shaft gallery with masking tape to keep out debris, cam bearings seem to be dirt magnets. - Use a large radiator hose clamp on each piston as ring compressors when installing new piston rings, they're much cheaper than a special ring compressor or buying a new set of rings after breaking one. - It might be easier to install your cam chain if you realize that the master link doesn't have to be perfectly centered on the cam sprocket - the cam shaft and crank shaft rotation DO have to be perfectly aligned/timed but it doesn't matter if the master link is off a tooth or two from the sprocket alignment mark, also make sure the open end of the clip faces away from the chain's movement. - Use a thin coat of white lithium grease on the paper gaskets instead of a gasket sealer product - it works great as long as the mating surfaces are clean and undamaged plus the gaskets usually won't tear when you disassemble the engine so you can reuse them. If you're reusing paper gaskets, using white gease softens them and makes them swell up a little so they regain some of their pre-compression thickness. Hope this helps, I'm going for a ride!
Reference SectionHotshoe, thanks for taking time to include these notes. Saw your other thread about how to put a guide together. Helpful as well.
A while back I put a post on the "Suggestions" forum suggesting the need for a "Reference Section". This thread I think supports that post. My suggestion was to have a new section that would be a reference guide for these bikes. I know this would be a ton of work and I am not suggesting that it be done at once. But there is an accumulation of knowledge regarding these bikes that should be written down somewhere. For some reason I have never been able to get the search function on this site to function well. I accept responsibility for that. But, this thread vindicates my idea. Think about it. Hotshoe was asked to re-post things that had already been posted but do it in an organized way. Hmmmmm. I can see Ed's reasoning for not creating a hard copy of his accumulated knowledge because once you print it you can't change it. That is why this site makes such a great place to accumulate knowledge. If you learn something new - as Ed acknowledges even he does - you CAN change it in a reference section. I have 3 different Bill Silver manuals. I still come here to search for answers that are not written down there. The FAQ section may have started out as the idea I am suggesting now, but it clearly ran out of gas pretty early on. The Reference section would also be a place to refer newbies who are asking very basic questions. They would probably get into it and learn alot of other useful things as well. Again, I know this would be a lot of work. I am no expert, but would be willing to help as needed. It may be as simple as this: When a question is asked, post the reply in the thread and in the reference section. It may take a little extra organizing and perfecting by some of the experts and may even need to be limited to answers by experts, but before long most of the answers will be there in an organized way. A final reflection: A couple of years ago I had a lot of mechanical ability, but almost no knowledge about these bikes. In a couple of years I have learned a great deal about matters specifc to these bikes. I have 2 sons who think these bikes are really cool, but they know nothing about them. I can answer their questions today, but if something happened to me, their "reference" source would be gone for good. They could learn it all just as I did, but we all know how much work it is and how long it takes. I confess I get excited finding the answer to a difficult or obscure question. But not everyone does. And it always takes away from time I will have left to ride. I hope this doesn't sound like griping. It is not. I appreciate this site and everyone who contributes. It is a great community. I make this suggestion with the hope that it could be even better. 'Nuff said.
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