Done and done!

Received my parts today! Bad news? I didn't take any pics of the oil pan gasket replacement! It wouldn't have been very exciting anyway, just very messy (which is one reason why I didn't take any pics... my hands were covered in oil.)

When we last left the bike, it was sitting with the exhaust on the worktable. I tried cleaning the pipes up a bit but they're pretty badly pitted. Let's just say they look better. I took off all the bolts holding the pan on, then had difficulty removing it from the bike due to a couple of what appear to be grounding connections. I also removed the oil sending unit which was bolted on with two bolts. Apparently you can remove this part without removing the oil pan, but of course I didn't know that at the time. Anyhow, it came off, with some coaxing, and I replaced the o ring.

There's a pretty good chance that the inside of my oil pan hadn't seen the light of day since it was installed. After I cleared away the sediment. it looked brand new. I got intimately familiar with the different parts of the oil motor, not that I'll ever pull the pan off again. Scraping the old gasket off was a bit of a job. Especially upside down, But, I got it done.

I put the new gasket on the pan, after oiling the edge, and slipped it into place. It took a bit of finagling, and through the whole time I kept thinking that the gasket was slipping out of place. However, all was well.

The tough part was getting that exhaust back in place. After prying out the old gaskets (and let me tell you, they were wedged in there tight) I put the new ones in place. Then, trying to line up the exhaust pipes to the header was difficult. They just didn't want to line up with the bolts. I finally had to loosen a few bolts lower down on the pipe, thereby adjusting the upper part of the pipe. I had my son help me put the pipes in place, and finally it was done.

I added oil to the bike, 3 quarts, and readied myself. I slipped some heavyweight paper under the bike, just in case of leaks, and started it up. It started right up, with a bit of choke, of course, and I warmed it up. I noticed a couple of drips, but hoped against hope it wasn't anything serious. It sounded pretty good (except for the squeak toy.. gotta pull those carbs off soon) and the oil continued to drip.

I took it for a quick run around the neighborhood and it ran pretty good, but when I got back, the oil continued to drip. I decided to pull the oil cover off and check to make sure there wasn't a break in the o-ring seal, and lo and behold, I noticed the oil filter was in backwards! Stupid rookie mistake.

It's now several hours later, and the bike still hasn't leaked. I am going to let it set overnight and check it in the morning. I psyched about having a bike again. Looking forward to riding it...