With the clutch and gearbox sorted, the next port of call was the R80’s top-end. Despite my concerted attempts to refit almost everything upside-down, Sam kept things honest and we got there in the end.
The freshly painted barrel and valve sections of the top-end were ready to roll, so I focused on preparing the pistons with new piston rings. Before getting started with that, I began by cleaning up the pistons as they were covered in carbon that had built up over the years.
Pistons Cleaned Up
The pistons came up rather nicely. Once I was done with that, I started on installing the new piston rings.
New Piston Rings With Installation Guide
Following the installation guide, I installed each ring as illustrated above.
Piston Ring Installation (Starting From The Bottom)
With all the piston rings fitted, I utilised a piston ring compression tool to compress the piston rings enough to get the pistons back into their respective barrels.
Piston Ring Compression Tool
Cleaned Up Piston Returned To Barrel
The next step was to gently work the connecting rod back through the piston and conrod, then install new piston circlips.
Refitting Connecting Rod
Barrel Section Sorted
Sam and I repeated the steps for the opposing side.
Both Barrels Refitted
We prepared and installed the necessary gasket and moved on to refitting the valve section of the top-end.
Gasket In Place
Valve Section Refitted
Once the valve section was in place, we worked on refitting the rockers. We then torqued up the nuts to spec in the sequence outlined in the workshop manual. Without including the rocker covers, the top-end was back together and lookin’ damnnnnn fine!
Motor Top-End Rebuilt