Borat alive and well yes.
Been real busy and nothing has been breaking. So, no need to seek advice. Just dropped in to see what the latest topics are on this forum. I'll probably be staying tuned in a bit more now that all the summer equipment is now pressed into service. All Echo products (leaf blower, weed eater, walk behind mower) working fine. Husquvarna riding mower (Kawi engine) running like new.
Put my 1976 Yamaha RD400 together and fired it up as well. Not so good there. Engine ran away on it (didn't actually leave the bike) and it was spinning wildly at 11,000 rpm until I pulled the fuel line. I figured it would blow up for sure at that kind of speed. Fortunately, those old Yamaha two strokes are pretty durable and well balanced. What I learned was that the bottom end needed a rebuild and the leaking crank seals allowed the engine to get away on me. Here's a picture of how it looked before I pulled it apart again. Looking not bad for a 32 year old bike if I do say so myself.
I'm getting the entire bottom end re-built which includes disassembly of the crank, replacing all bearings, seals, and connecting rods. To do that, the crank has to be pulled apart and reassembled. Couldn't do that myself because heavy machine shop presses are required. Should get the bottom end back this week sometime then I can put it all back together and give it another shot. Haven't been completely idle in the meantime. I pulled the engine out of one of my RD350s and I'm doing some initial engine inspections as well as straightening out a wiring nightmare compliments of the d.s.p.o. (dip$#%* previous owner). Spent several hours yesterday getting the lights to work. So far I've got all signal lights and brake lights working. No head light and no tail light. Also have a problem when I switch the key from on to the ignition setting. Blow a fuse every time. So, it would appear that I have a dead short somewhere. Nothing worse than electrickery. Takes a lot of mental discipline to follow the schematics and imagination to understand how it all works. Unfortunately for me, two qualities that are in short supply in my garage. One thing that I have discovered though is that rather than going through dozens of fuses working on the dead short, after the first fuse blew, I took the ends of the fused wire s and connected them with a short piece of thin solder. Now when the wires heat up, the solder melts, the wires come apart and I just re-join with another piece of solder.
So, thanks for your concern. I'll try to stay in touch a little more.
