The Wing finally died.

[OldWrench]

196,000 miles and the darn engine decided that was it. Well she blew a the right hand head gasket. Opened her up and that was the least of my problems, cracked head and scored cylinder walls on #3. My 80 engine only has 30k on it and it was sitting on the floor of the garage, so this weekend was spent swapping engines, got everything done and as Murphy would have it. I didn’t have any manifold O-rings so I decided to take a chance, bad idea, and I knew better.

With all that said, I’m just wondering if rebuilding the 83 engine is a option because of the scoring on #3 cylinder. I would really love to rebuild this engine but I did a search for pistons and couldn’t find a thing. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
:thank_you:

 

[dan filipi]

Well I'm alittle biased because I'd like to see a full video tutorial on rebuilding the '83 but you could swap the gears and for all intents and purposes you'd have the same engine performance as an '83 with the taller gears.

You'd loose the overdrive light though because the front cover and switch drive mechanism is different.

I did a cost to rebuild about 3 years ago, worked out to around $800 parts.
That was new pistons, rings, bearings, doing it the right way.
Parts availability is certainly an issue.
I found a Chinese company said they could make pistons, Chinese hmmm.
I believe with enough time invested all the parts could be sourced either from another engine model or custom made and still keep cost below $1K.

 

[joedrum]

the 1200 pistons are just slightly larger....as for pin location and stuff im not sure of but i always thought this to be an option but have never got to where your at now to look further into things..... :mrgreen:

 

[OldWrench]

The scoring on #3 appears to be caused by a broken ring. Since I haven’t pulled it apart I don’t know how much taper there will be in the cylinders. 1200 pistons, know that’s a thought will need to do some homework on that idea, and will depend on how thick the sleeves are, get the sleeves to thin and she will overheat.

As for the gear change, I already installed the eighty engine, but I like the idea of the taller gears, I’ll just need to wait and see. As for having pistons made, I really don’t think I want to go that route. Also I have seen a lot of relatively low mileage engines on EBay for just a few hundred bucks, of course buyer be ware there.

 

[dan filipi]

All things considered I think putting the '83 gears in is the best choice since you know the 80 has low miles and good compression.
Used engines are such a crap shoot.

 

[cmonSTART]

It's good to have spares!!

 

[OldWrench]

Used engines are such a crap shoot.

You are so right about that. Why do you think I should stay with the 83 gears?

 

[joedrum]

the 83 has the best touring gears of all the 1100s and down low its got good gears there too for taking off .....where 90-81 gear spead is close the lowest in all the oldwings about 1000 rpm more at 70 mph :mrgreen: ....

 

[OldWrench]

Well I see what you mean about the gear spread. Got her back on the road, I didn’t notice any first gear issues starting out. Seems to me it is about 500 rpm difference at 65. One thing I can really tell is the shifting on this engine is so much smoother. I could tell the old engine trans was pretty worn. Because of my commute and where I live I seldom get over 65 and the norm is about 60, guess I’m getting old.
I missed an electrical connection somewhere because I don’t have a neutral indicator now and obviously need to start with clutch in so that needs to be fixed soon.