On removing the head and cylinders without seperation:

XSiveAl

I wanted to post this because i've recently done it and it works.
Some may already know this trick, but since it saved me time, money, and stress the other day, I thought I'd give it away to the crowd.

the head and cylinders can be removed from the crankcase without seperating them and without compromising your head gasket.

I decided, after diagnosing main bearing problems on my alternator side, to swap a 78 head onto a low mileage 76 case. Problem was.. I had no gaskets to use but stock ones and I'm impatient.. i told myself.. "it's ok and that if worse comes to worse, well, i'll just have to reuse one of these old one's like XS John does" but i didn't have to.

I didn't use sealant on my base gasket on the last assembly. I did use it, following 5Twins advice, on the head gasket's four outer bolts and cam tunnel.

Taking it apart i did not remove the three bolts that hold the head to the cylinder (under the spark plugs and the little one over the cam chain tensioner) a very soft tap from my rubber mallet lifted the pair off the crankcase with no unwanted seperation.

I reassembled it the day before yesterday with a hand-cut base gasket (*more on this later) and now have ridden already two hundred leakfree kilometers. I'm keeping a torque wrench handy for the headnuts for the next week, but it looks really good so far.

hope this can save someone else some time and frustration too.
thanks for reading
-XsiveAl

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Thought i would bump this to see if you are still running on the same gaskets since your barrel removal.
Could be a good "How To"

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