Both good ideas, didn't think about a socket, if I've even got one that the head bolt would go through, prolly need a 3/4" drive? PVC does sound better but I don't have any laying around. I did however have all those washers so I just used what I had available.
Thanks! She is not always out there with me but I will try to snap some more of her in the background.

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Finally got the heads, lower rocker housings and rocker assemblies installed today. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning the heads up, chased all the threads and hit them with brake cleaner and air a few times. The threads did have quite a bit of junk left over in them plus all the old loctite I dug out with a pick.







A thin layer of assembly goo on the new dowel pins and got those installed. Proceeded to clean up the jugs gasket surfaces and got my gaskets oriented on correctly then sat the heads on the jugs.







Took some time to also clean up the head bolts, just chucked them up one by one in my drill press and then used that grey scotchbrite pads to clean the head and flanged surface well. Chased the threads and hit em' with some brake cleaner and air, then applied a light coating of ARP assembly lube to the threads and bottom of the bolt heads. Torqued everything per the sequence that came with the cometic gasket kit - Started with 120 then 144 in/lbs to get them snugged up nicely and followed up with 14, 22, 35 and finally 42 ft/lbs.









Went ahead and got the new exhaust studs installed with a light coating of never-seize and just ran them down till snug.







Lastly it was time to clean up the rocker housings, I did not get pictures of this process but I have some red scotchbrite wheels for cleaning up cylinder walls that I chucked up in the drill press. Took my time and hit all 4 sides of the housing with the wheel until everything looked uniform and clean. Removed any old gasket material left behind and hit them with dawn soap and a scrub brush followed by some brake cleaner and air. I think they came out nice

Next it was time to get the rockers disassembled and cleaned up. Had to scrap a lot of old gasket material off the breather assembly, brake cleaner and air again and then reassembled them. Changed out the rubber valve, filter media and new gaskets of course.





Final step getting all of it installed on the heads and torqued down properly! Blue loctite on all of the bolts, torqued per the sequence in the manual. 155 in/lbs on the rocker housing bolts, 22 ft/lbs on the rockers and 120 in/lbs on the breather bolts.







With the exception of some nuance things I'm pretty much at the end of what I can do for now until I get parts back from PC which I have no idea how long that is going to take. So for all that are following along don't be alarmed if I don't post for a little while....

 

1/2" drive works for head bolts. Myself, I put the bottom end in, then put top together because it was lighter. Slid in and out easy that way too. Though last 2 times I did not start with intent to pull bottom end out, But I would do it that way again I think. Granted I see advantages to doing it on bench. Though can get high too.

 

Back in my 2 stroke days I always preferred to do rebuilds on the bench unless it was a quick top end service with the exception of jet skis, those 3 cylinder 2 strokes are heavy and tight to get in and out so I would tear down top end then pull crankcase, rebuild that and then back in and finish top end. In this case I definitely see the advantages to finishing it in the frame but my frame is nowhere near being ready for the engine so I don't have much choice.

 

You may or not regret your haste. You could just leave the parts on a shelf until frame is ready.

 

If only I had a big shop with lot's of room

 

Onbviously I can't see your shop. Are the parts in the kitchen now? Nothing wrong with that. I have stashed parts around the house at times. But the parts were sitting somewhere yesterday.

 

So, how's everyone been doing? I've been trying to finish this post for three days. Got a small update to post and stayed tuned at the end if you don't have a queasy stomach.

Start working on the handlebars, my old apes were rusting out on the left side under the grip and rather than trying to strip, clean and PC them I just got new bars, went with the TC Bros 12" narrow apes. I noticed these had a bit of spot rusting on the inside and didn't want to chance it happening again so I taped off all the holes and sprayed a heavy dose of rust stop primer in them and coated the entire inside best I could.





I had previously extended the wires back when I tried some 14" apes and didn't like them so reverted the wires back to stock length. I also wanted to remove all the old sticky tape and rewrap them with Tesa cloth tape, if you have never used this stuff it is perfect for wire harness's, I use it a lot when I do car audio builds or just general wiring on my vehicles. Decided to cut off all the old heatshrink and redo them with adhesive shrink. New adhesive shrinkwrap on the loom and they look good as new now.





One of the Molex pins broke when I was fishing the wires through so I had to order some terminals and crimp a new one on. Handlebars are good to go now!



Last week I got a call from PC saying I could come get my parts. Time to finish the motor I had to clean up the rocker covers as they had a bit of overspray on the gasket surface, nothing some 600 grit sandpaper and a little soap and water couldn't fix. The covers were done in wrinkle black but rather than the flat black that Harley uses they did them in Satin as I had everything else done. Minor oversight on my part for not specifying I wanted Flat wrinkle black. Also cleaned up all the cover bolts and got these suckers mounted and torqued to whatever the spec was in the manual, I don't recall ATM.




Made sure to get Luna in the frame more this day, you can see her standing guard as the neighborhood is bustling and then taking a nap from all that work standing guard.



Time to get the intake manifold mounted, I sent this off to Dan Vance and he port matched it and upsized the throttle plate to 50 mm as well as smoothed out the flow characteristics. Started off with getting the injectors mounted along with all the sensors, torqued to spec from manual with blue Loctite. The James gaskets have a lip of material on them to give a better seal than OEM but that lip was making it impossible to get the manifold even close to being seated and holes lined up. Ended up trimming the lip off which got me within a 1/4 hole, mounted up the air cleaner body to assist with alignment and get the manifold pushed back where it needed to be. Then it was just a matter of using a long screw drive to manipulate the flanges so I could get the bolts started.

 

Next up was getting the push rods installed and lash set, I used a combination of visually watching the rods and my endoscope to find TDC on each cylinder, realistically the endoscope did all the work. Used the compensator nut with a washer behind it for turning over the engine. I set everything per the manual and the sheet Fuel Moto included which gave a spec of 4 turns out from zero lash for the Woods lifters. I had purchased the Colony adjustable pushrod cover set and found that I ended up not needing them but since I had them I decided what the hell and used them anyways. I hit every piece of these with my scotchbrite pad on the drill press to get that brushed/spun aluminum look.









I can finally say that the motor is complete, That is one sexy build right there!



The final update to those who don't mind knowing or seeing is I fileted my index finger open at work drilling out a piece of angle I had fab'd up to be used as a stop plate for a Hytrol conveyor. Drill hung and the angle piece spun around putting my finger between it and the drill. Took me a bout 2 hours to get to the ER for treatment after mounting the bracket that bit me, picking up my work area and loading my truck. All the while bloods dripping all over the floor, the bleeding just would not stop! When the Dr. laid the flesh over to examine the wound it was squirting blood so I must of nicked a blood vessel. Anyways, needless to say until my finger has had a bit of time to heal I probably won't be tryna throw the motor in the frame. I'm still waiting on the other PC parts for now anyways so I've got some time....

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Ouch!!!!!!!

Is there a thread chaser kit available or you bought individual taps to clean out the threads?

 

It honestly scared me more than hurt, mainly because I was not sure how well they would be able to reattach the meat.

I have a Lang Tools 971 thread restorer kit, all the threads on these engines are common 1/4, 3/8, 5/16 etc