earlwb

I had obtained a old Irvine .61 from another fellow, and I found that he didn't exactly treat the engine all that well. Apparently he had crashed it at once time or another and put a old ASP carb on it too. Anyway, the engine had no compression at all, but the cylinder looked really good, almost like low time on the engine, where it still had the hone crosshatch marks on the cylinder. Plus the bearings didn't feel smooth either.
I had a devil of a time getting the head off, apparently someone had overtightened the screws so much so that three of screw heads stripped out on me, so I couldn't use a allen wrench on them. I had to use a drill press and drill the heads off the screws, remove the head and then use a small vice grip pliers to unscrew the stubs. of course then the rod didn't want to come off the crankshaft either. But after oiling, heating it up a few times, and fiddling with it for a long time, it popped off. Then I found that the dykes piston ring was stuck on the piston tightly. I looked at it with a jeweler's loupe and couldn't find the ring ends or gap. Eventually, I started gently tapping on the ring around the circumference and suddenly a ring tip popped out so I could peel it off. With the jewlers loupe the ring actually looked pretty rough and pitted around its outer edge. I then used the old ring to clean out the piston ring groove real good.
So now I am waiting on some new crankshaft bearings so I can put it back together. I'll need to find another carb, preferably a Irvine carb for it as I don't think the old ASP carb is really any good. But one doesn't know until they try it out though. I might have to stick a Perry carb on it.
Fun stuff fiddling around with a engine and trying to save it to use again.