Finally got engine out.
Will start the strip down tomorrow and post progress for anyone who’s interested.
Garyb
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Heads off and signs of wear on one camshaft and blockages in the water paths.
Will need to see if my spare cams are in better state and remove liners when crank halves are separated but need to sort a flywheel extractor out first and back to work tonight so that will slow things down! Work getting in the way of life again, roll on retirement. Need to order some parts I’ve found are a bit dodgy so maybe work comes in handy sometimes.
Garyb
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Keep posting updates please
Like it a lot 
Heads all stripped and ready for cleaning, no major issues other than the follower for rear cam but have a replacement for that. The usual signs of wear, oil passing valve seals and valve seats need lapping but everything else is good.
Soda blast heads and valves next and see what lies under the 37 years of carbon deposits.
Garyb
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Be sure to fish all the spring seat washers out before blasting mate,they are a pain to find
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I can second Bif’s comment. I did find the valve lapping process highly theraputic 
Looking forward to the lapping as I definitely need therapy!
Did first clean in soda blaster and looks ok.
Going to give them another blast tomorrow and see if I can get rid of rest of carbon then onto the lapping, also cleaned up one valve to see how well it worked
Not as impressed with that though but not too bad for a home made soda blaster cabinet, will play around with air pressure and flow rates to see if I can improve performance but after a week of night shifts it’s time to have a cider or two, purely for medicinal purposes.
Garyb
3 Likes
Flywheel removal tool arrived today so stripped rest of engine, no major horror stories found so quite relieved, only thing I found which I suspected before strip was damage to one of the gears.
Will have a dig through spares tomorrow and see if I have one, think fe gearbox is the same and I’ve got two of them spare. Will need to inspect selector forks as well.
Garyb
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A question for the frew brothers, what should I look for regarding the gearbox? I know you did your gearbox John, what was the problem with it? And bif, you are the guru so any advice? I had an occasional problem dropping out of second gear and the gearbox was clunky and quite hard to change gear but I think that is the a problem they all have.
Garyb
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Second gear problems were a common fault on F/RE,many components were sourced from the 750F and so are under a bit more strain with the extra power and torque of the 1K.The F/RF used modified parts more suited to the task.
I have used complete FF gearboxes in a couple of E rebuilds,straight swap with no issues.
Thanks bif, I have a stripped down f buried away in the shed somewhere and a full engine that needs stripping so should have enough parts to make a good one. Will fight my way into the shed and see if I can find anything, if I don’t post in next few days send in a search party!
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Plenty parts here if you need them Garry,just let us know
I survived the trip into the shed and found a good gearbox shaft with a much better 2nd gear cog, it has a little wear on it but nothing compared to one from R.
Found a few other goodies in there too. Must clean out that shed when weather gets better. On late shift this week so won’t have much time to do any work but hopefully can get some cleaning of parts and valves lapped in.
Garyb
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Hi Gary, the selector fork on 1st/4th was worn allowing the dog clutch to float about. Very obvious if it has gone.
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Thanks John, had a good look at the selector forks and all ok so just changed the damaged gears and hopefully it won’t drop out of 2nd gear into neutral now. Rest of the gearbox looks fine. The joy of valve lapping next! I’ve always found the stick with the suckers on constantly falls of the valve so did some research and found a guy on YouTube using a mini collet from a milling machine to grip end of valve, they grip all the way round the shaft unlike a drill chuck that only grips in 3 places so won’t damage the valve stem so I got a 5.5mm collet and holder of Ebay for £10 and fitted a file handle to the holder so I can do the back and forth movements so hopefully it won’t keep falling off and allow a more stress free and therapeutic process.
The only problem I can see will be getting enough pressure to actually grind the seat but hopefully the file handle will help with that if not I will weld a t bar to the end.
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Hi Garry,
I’ve been using the Gunson Eezi-lap, it’s done about three engins for me now, absolutely easy, just put the cordless drill on one end and the sucker on the valve the gear box oscillates the valve back and forth,
Hi Pete, machine mart have them for £32 so may get one as I’ve hurt my wrist and manual lapping would literally be a pain! Does the sucker stick to the valves ok? I’ve used a similar type years ago and the valve face had to be polished and grease free to work.
Normally I clean the valves up by putting stem in the cordless drill, then running it through a green scotch brite pad soaked in wd40, this gets them clean enough for the sucker to stick, occasionally it does slip if you let any grinding paste get between sucker and valve, if that happens just wipe clean and re attach sucker…
Going to struggle doing it manually so will get one of them as I have another R engine to do after this one.
Good news is All valves lapped in and heads cleaned ready to paint. Bad news is when I removed pistons there is a problem with the liner on one.
These marks are in the liner and would need to be bored to get them out, do either Pete or bif know if I can use the liner from an f engine as I have a couple of them and have to remove the liners anyway to clean the water jacket out.
Garyb
1 Like