Cylinder Head Stripdown

Gotta love the simplicity of the Guzzi design. Stripping down the top end is very easy. On one side, the bolts were well torqued, and just needed a little persuasion in a few cases. On the other, the bolts had clearly not been torqued properly, and virtually fell off. Oh well.

Start by just removing the rocker covers:

There are five bolts that hold the cylinder in place. Four are obvious:

and one is below the cutout for the breather pipe:

The bolts are broken in diagonal sequence, and then the first things to come off are the two bolts that hold the valve rocker assemby:

There's a D-shaped spacer under each nut:

and then the rocker assembly comes off:

There are two other D-shaped spacers under the rocker assembly:

A sharp tap with a rubber mallet released the grip of the gaskets:

and off she comes:

Say hello to Mr. Piston:

Here's the barrel. The water droplets are from the recent pressure washing:

Here are the valves:

A Ziplock bag over the pistons protects them from the casings:

Here is is with both sides removed:

Engine Cleaning

First order of business with the engine mounted in its stand was to clean it up a bit. I used Gunk Engine cleaner, and the equivalent product from 3-in-1. I then cleaned it off with a pressure washer.

Not bad! The flash makes it look cleaner than it does in real life:

Seat

Just a few photos of the original seat. Not yet sure what I'll do with this.

This is the factory seat:

and with the red plastic bit removed:

Not very exciting now, was it?