And now to the present. The 350 had been sat in the shed for a long while. I bought another bike an XJ600 and this was my main project for the last couple of years. I decided to cut my losses and get rid of that. Over the Christmas period, I decided to fix the Pan up (this will be up soon) and once this was out of the shed I then decided to find out if the engine ran for it.
It had been sat outside covered, however, it kept getting uncovered and I did keep turning the engine over by hand. On this one occasion though it would not turn over and required a big yank on the flywheel and with a crack it was free. It was because of this I was not sure if it would work.
So I removed the wheels from the frame, and dropped the frame over the engine, and spent the next hour swearing and sweating trying to get the engine aligned and in the frame. Finally, it slipped in then I tried to fit the rear wheel by lifting it myself.
I gave up eventually and was exhausted and left it for a day or two before getting my paddock stands out and used these to insert the wheels. I found the controls, fuse box, starter relay, and ignition and wired it all up. A spare battery was put on charge and I cleaned the carbs quickly as they had seized solid in the years they were left.
Oil was the next needed item, I had lots of oil in a host of different containers and mixed them all together to make sure I had enough in the engine. It was at this point I realized the bolts holding the oil cooler pipes bracket were rounded and I could not remove. I ended up with the angle grinder cutting the heads off and then drilling out the hole. This could have been done a lot better if I had tried to do this before remounting the engine.
At last, we had oil in and the oil cooler mounted so I squirted some oil in the bores and turned over. after finding out I didn’t have the cooler pipes tight enough and cleaning up the floor I decided to stick the plugs in and start. Which led to the next problem.
I lost all the plugs! every plug I had was the wrong size. I have 4 other bikes here, and they all use the smaller plug so off to eBay it was. two days later new plugs arrived in the post. It was the moment of truth.
Now she was running I was happy to continue with the project and clean the engine up and get the bike finally back together after all this time.
Engine out and on the bench. Years of crud built up on the sides and back where it has been sat in the shed.
Side panel off to remove the old spray paint. Wire brush and flap wheel on the angle grinder to clean up, before a quick wash in the dishwasher. Next, a few coats of Hammerite have been sprayed onto the engine casing. Paint pens ordered and lettering has been filled in. This still needs some touching up as it is not perfect at the moment.
Engine cleaned with degreaser and wire brush used to rub the loose paint and rust away and the holes blanked with paper and tape.
Starter motor cleaned and painted.
Engine bagged up ready for the painting.
Then high temp engine block paint and exhaust paint used for the block and head.
And this is where we are up to currently.