This is a very common procedure in far northern freezing countries during winter.
Fires are lit under the engine/gearbox and diff before they are started or moved.
We had a modern version of a wood fire for our Drag Car, which was a 12V heating pad that was attached to the entire bottom surface of the engine sump.
This was specifically designed to get the engine oil up to temperature before firing/entering the starting stage of the Drag Strip……… as it is the Drag Car was shut down at the end of each Pass, towed back to the Pits, wait a few hours between rounds, towed back to the Staging Lanes and then pushed the whole way up to starting the Engine Just immediately prior to exiting the Staging Lanes and onto the Pre-Stage area itself.
This meant that the Engine, without an Oil Heater, would have to be started dead cold and then seconds later pull a maximum RPM Burnout/Tyre Warmup Skid and less than 30 seconds later be given full throttle under full load……… which is not good for a cold engine in any situation!
Now that sounds like a good solution with the heating pad. Never heard of that before.
I always warm up and warm down my motors depending what they are. Some brainless idiots jump in a freezing cold diesel and roar around the corner to get a bottle of milk and wonder why they are up for a 6 grand engine rebuild.
Here’s a story for you @DocBob so my 2003 YZ450F started getting a bit rattly on the renowned weak big end. Up around 60hrs. Righto I’ll do it myself as they come with the best workshop manual I’ve seen.
Yep so send the crank through yamaha pitmans SA and yep they’ll supply all the gaskets and piston rings shit I need to reassemble.
So here I go throw it all back together fires up no worries. Being a renowned Yamaha dealer I did not double check anything. Rode around for might have got 20 minutes, stopped idling away. Bang. WTF. Piston decided to eat the 5 titanium valve head and split the cylinder.
So I started checking shit, got the calipers out on tear down to see wtf problem is. The fuckern piston was 93mm OD instead of 95mm. Yamaha Australia supplied it to me for my model. Unbelievable
A classic example of how important it is to check EVERYTHING when building an engine, no matter how good the brand name, reputation of the supplier or even the measurements/size specifications that are given/supplied when ordering or having machining work done………. absolutely nothing is guaranteed to being actually correct as expected
I have experienced plenty of this from building engines over many years, where expensive high end parts from highly reputable brands/manufacturers have been found to have manufacturing flaws or have been mislabeled during the packaging process, which can lead to new parts straight out of the box have been found to be incorrect or having manufacturing flaws.
Had machine shops stuff up with sizes/tolerances specified to them being exceeded/changed without informing anyone, and only finding out during careful inspection/measurement of the parts.
I could write a book on the subject, but basically replying in the advice that you can’t trust anyone or anything in the parts/machining/manufacturing industry at all
yep. Been on the receiving edge of rebuild on a Windsor. Ended up doubling the build price because the shop kept supplying non-rotating flat tappet retainers for a roller cam engine. They insisted that it was the way I was driving that caused the broken valve springs
I start mine up once a week (it’s half bro rg 250) in the garage with the doors closed and just sit.
Two stroke therapy.
The wife hates the smell and sound
And just thinks I am an old fool.
Yes I might be an old fool
But a very happy old fool
I still have half a can of Castrol gp 50 from 1962.
I would wear it as aftershave if I could
Had 2 RGV 250’s back in the day. The first one was the older model featuring the straight swing arm with blue and white paint job. Wrote that off in an accident.
The second was the newer shape with the banana swing arm, bought it as a wreck for $750 and ended up spending thousands on it, engine rebuild, Canary Yellow paint job, nickel plated exhaust and mufflers, had the wheels chromed… Ahh good times
He has two the green and the blue both less than 10 thousand ks.fully restored.
I am only taking three bikes to the states
My Ducati 900ssd which I have had from near new
My rg250 which was my best friends bike I bought it from his widow.
And the
KZ 750 triple
Was going to add a z900 but they are way cheaper in the states than Here
SO I AM LEAVING SEVEN BIKES (BOTH MINE AND THE MISSES COLLECTION FOR HIM TO KEEP WHAT HE WANTS AND SELL THE REST TO PAY FOR THE TRIPLE
THE
1974 ENFIELD
1981 GPZ 1100
KAWASAKI Drifter
HONDA TRIKE
1990 DUCATI 750SS
1978 DUCATI GT 750 UNFINISHED
XV 1100
AND ASSORTED PARTS
I HAVE ACTUALLY STOPPED RIDING A MONTH AGO TRYING TO Consolidate ALL MY BIKE S AND MACHINERY Associated WITH BIKE REBUILDS
EG
Lathes
REBORE MACHINES
PRESSES AND SO FORTH
I was planning to sell everything anyway before as I have had enough of working on bikes 40 plus year’s.
A lot of it is earmarked to a mates bike shop.
All I want left is a tool box and time to ride.
So far we have filled one 20 foot container.
And I have bought another one (cheaper to buy than hire and store)
If the states idea go,s to shit at least we are packed and ready to move.
But it has to be a dry climate as both of us suffer in the humidity.
WA WOULD LIKELY BE THE CHOICE
Yep 1500 cc based on the Kawasaki VN 1500
But the drifters were 5speed
The VN 1500 were four speed and terrible ratios.
Plus’s the clutch slipped from new on BOTH models.
Kawasaki used two conical shaped disc’s to depress the clutch on both models .
And they put them in wrong from factory.
So you take them out spin one around to face the other so the have resistance against each other and put it back together never have to change it again not every 5 thousand ks.
I must have bought up at least 10 VN 1500 and drifters so cheap took me a hour to fix and $50 for the gasket.
Sell for twice payed for.
So if you ever see one with this problem buy it cheap motors are indestructible easy fix.
Problem solved.
