Engine work

I got the cylinder off by using my puller. I placed a piece of wood on the top of the cylinder and the puller bolt sat on top of the wood while pulling the engine fins up from underneath. It appears that it was rusted on from the inside. It had been soaking in PB blaster (penetrating oil) for nearly 3 weeks. Every couple days I would go out and spray some into the engine while I was studying for finals at school.

First I tried to clean out the ports as best I could with some pipe cleaners, stiff bristled brushes, and various solvents. I actually soaked it for a while to try to loosen some of it up.

Then I bought a small engine hone from checker that attaches to a drill and honed the cylinder. It was rusty inside, so I thought it would be best (and cheaper than boreing).

I decided against buying a new piston or rings for the time being. This set looks like it is in pretty good shape. It just needed cleaning. I can always replace it later if I need to. My friend started up a Vespa P200 that had been sitting for ten years without replacing the piston, though admittedly that one wasn’t seized. We’ll see how this goes.

I cleaned out the crank case as best I could with gasoline. It still stinks in my garage. I’m not sure this is the best way to do it, but it looks cleaner.

Now I’m just waiting for a new head gasket to come and I’ll put it all back together. I could buy some RTV for motorcycles, but that’s 8$. I’d rather just buy a whole gasket set for $10. I can have them if I need them. I didn’t want to mess around with the transmission after getting a look at a Lambretta parts manual (series-3-early). There are THOUSANDS of little parts in there. I wouldn’t be replacing anything, but only trying to clean it out a little. It’s not worth the risk right now. I guess I can just put in some Automatic Transmission Fluid which has some detergents in it. I’ll run it for five minutes with that in the transmission, then put in the real stuff (SAE 30). Word on the street is this is common practice.