FJ1346 from ashes to... Well, we'll see...

[skymasteres]

Thanks for the comments guys.
Here's a quick question. Does anyone have a less expensive source for the headlight adjusting swivel link? Mine has the adjuster rod and knob, but the little universal joint is broken.

Moving back into the garage...
I have been working on engines for a long time and one of the things I'd read about and really wanted to put into this one was some of those nifty ceramic engine coating that imbue engine parts with magical power making qualities. I kid of course, but there are several coatings available that will enhance engine performance. I looked at this as a good place to increase reliability and power, especially consider just how much efficiency you lose in small displacement high RPM engines. Now before everyone balks, remember I come from the V-8 world were a 302ci (5000 CCs) engine with a redline of 7500 is considered small.  As the RPMs climb into the 10k+ range your frictional losses get huge. Now I know that the FJ isn't revved that high, but I figured what the heck.
In doing some research on coatings I found several companies that I could send parts out to and have them coated. But it just seemed like an awful lot of money for what I was getting. I mean $400 for piston tops, skirts, and combustion chambers seemed excessive. So looking further I discovered that Techline has a bunch of different ceramics that are perfect for my application.  I looked through their literature and was struck by just how strict the preparation and application procedures were. It was at this point that it dawned on me that most of the cost of getting these coatings applied professionally was in the labor and not the materials. Seeing as how I was already set up to do powder coating I figure why not.

So what are the requirements to put a spray on ceramic coating on an engine part? It has to be CLEAN and it has to be etched so that the pores in the metal are all opened up. Most of these coatings bond in an extremely thin film. The most important thing aside from cleaning the part is having clean dry air that you are spraying with.
Now to the back of my cave of wonders (garage) I had to modify my sandblasting cabinet to allow for easier switching out of the blast media. (The ceramic coatings need a 120grit abrasive) The piddly little ¾" opening just wouldn't do.

Here's my little sandblasting cabinet with my air dryer underneath.



Now I know this is not in the same ilk as your usual builds, but I figure I may as well show everything that went into making this process happen. So here is a little run down on how I made my little harbor freight blast cabinet a WHOLE LOT more user friendly.

The pieces ready to go. I took a two inch steel nipple and cut it in half. It will be welded to the bottom of the sump to allow for quicker media changes. I.e. no more shaking the cabinet for 20 minutes trying to clean it out.



Cleaned up with a wire brush and the hole started.



Getting the nipple welded to the sump



The finished product with the original hole patched.



I was unhappy with the original media pickup method and decided to use a piece of 5/16" copper tube. I took a short section, bent it to shape, and used liquid nails to affix it to the bottom of the cabinet.



I then used the rest of the tube to seal up the cabinet. Here is the new copper pickup tube in place.

[FJmonkey]

The U-joint breaks on all of them. I have some spares made at work if you have all of the other pieces. Yours for cost of shipping. Another member posted his fix by using a 1/4 inch socket drive U-joint, very clean looking fix. A quick search for "adjuster" should find it for you.

[skymasteres]

The U-joint breaks on all of them. I have some spares made at work if you have all of the other pieces. Yours for cost of shipping. Another member posted his fix by using a 1/4 inch socket drive U-joint, very clean looking fix. A quick search for "adjuster" should find it for you.

You're the man! I'll definitely take you up on that.
Back to the living room. I had the blast cabinet set up so now it was time to start prepping the connecting rods. I figured since I already had the crank lightened and balanced it would be a shame to have rods that were all different weights. I was glad I checked too because there was 8 grams of difference between the lightest and the heaviest rod of the four new ones I got. So, after building a little balancing jig, it was a simple matter of getting all the small ends to weigh the same. Well, that and doing an overall weight matching.

Here is the balancing jig with the carrillo's I originally had. Long story short, I ended up with three new style and one old style rod. It was impossible to make up the 13 grams of difference between the two styles. I even took it to carrilo's HQ to see if they could do anything about it and they said they couldn't remove enough material to make it balance.  John was good enough to take back the rods. (Turns out he got them from an unpleasant individual some time ago.)



I actually don't really have pictures of the process, but it was just using a 6x24 belt sander to remove the necessary material.

[skymasteres]

Back to the garage! The blast cabinet hadn't gone anywhere so it was time to start prepping the parts for coating. One of the things I had to figure out was what order I wanted to do the coatings in. Well, on parts that were getting multiple coatings at least. The pistons got a thermal barrio on the crowns, a ceramic lubricant on the skirts, and an oil shedding thermal dispersant on the underside of the pistons.

So here are the pistons getting their abrasive treatment.



Getting sprayed with the ceramic thermal barrier.



Comparison between an new piston and a coated one.



This is what the thermal barrier looks like when it is burnished with a scotch brite pad.



Here I had to mask the top and underside of the pistons to spray the ceramic lubricant.



The connecting rods were getting the same coating on the bore of the small end so I masked them off so they could be sprayed in the same batch along with the piston pins. (I figured I might as well...)





And going in the oven to cure.



Here is a cured piston waiting for the thermal dispersant on the bottom.



Here is everything masked and ready to go.
 


Getting the connecting rods sprayed and hanging them on wires while the coating dries so I don't contaminate them.



And here is a finished piston.

[FJmonkey]

Found it for you. This fix is likely much more robust than my new ones in SST. And anyone can do this. So let me know if you still want my part.

http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=7513.0

This what my fix looks like.
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=6286.msg55473#msg55473

[Mark Olson]

skymasteres, man you are balls deep into this project 

I am diggin all the attention to detail with this engine build . 

[JMR]

 Looks great.  Did you break the sharp edges on the piston crowns? Also....with Wiseco 1314 pistons I had to flycut the reliefs for OS valves. Are the stock reliefs large enough on those pistons??

[fj11.5]

Found it for you. This fix is likely much more robust than my new ones in SST. And anyone can do this. So let me know if you still want my part.

http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=7513.0

This what my fix looks like.
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=6286.msg55473#msg55473

still would like one monkey ranger

[FJmonkey]

Found it for you. This fix is likely much more robust than my new ones in SST. And anyone can do this. So let me know if you still want my part.

http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=7513.0

This what my fix looks like.
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=6286.msg55473#msg55473

still would like one monkey ranger

PM your address, I will check postage to you....

[skymasteres]

Looks great.  Did you break the sharp edges on the piston crowns? Also....with Wiseco 1314 pistons I had to flycut the reliefs for OS valves. Are the stock reliefs large enough on those pistons??

Well, as near as I can tell there is enough clarence for the valves to fit in the pockets. What do you mean, break the sharp edges? . I'm in the middle of tying to strip the ceramic off the piston tops, so it'd be helpful to know what that is before I re coat them.

[JMR]

Looks great.  Did you break the sharp edges on the piston crowns? Also....with Wiseco 1314 pistons I had to flycut the reliefs for OS valves. Are the stock reliefs large enough on those pistons??

Well, as near as I can tell there is enough clarence for the valves to fit in the pockets. What do you mean, break the sharp edges? . I'm in the middle of tying to strip the ceramic off the piston tops, so it'd be helpful to know what that is before I re coat them.

I like to have at least .040 lateral relief clearance.......060 is even better. Pistons have sharp edges secondary to machining the crowns. They have gotten a lot better in the last 5 years or so but they can benefit from extra attention. I use my porting tools to break the edges and smooth the reliefs etc. You can use wet/dry paper starting with 320 and then hit the crowns on a buffing wheel etc. It helps ward off detonation etc. I spend a good deal of time on piston crowns even working with flat tops or dished pieces.
Using the coatings is a good idea....I have Swain Tech do my work. I have seen pistons they have done come out of endurance cars and race bikes and the skirt coating(s) lose maybe a couple of tenths (.0001-2) at the most. FJ's run hot no matter what you do.....they can use all the help you can give them.
The work you have done looks professional and great....you will have a really nice bike in the end. Put some real cams and carbs in/on the engine and you should easily be in the 150HP range.

[skymasteres]

Looks great.  Did you break the sharp edges on the piston crowns? Also....with Wiseco 1314 pistons I had to flycut the reliefs for OS valves. Are the stock reliefs large enough on those pistons??

Well, as near as I can tell there is enough clarence for the valves to fit in the pockets. What do you mean, break the sharp edges? . I'm in the middle of tying to strip the ceramic off the piston tops, so it'd be helpful to know what that is before I re coat them.

I like to have at least .040 lateral relief clearance.......060 is even better. Pistons have sharp edges secondary to machining the crowns. They have gotten a lot better in the last 5 years or so but they can benefit from extra attention. I use my porting tools to break the edges and smooth the reliefs etc. You can use wet/dry paper starting with 320 and then hit the crowns on a buffing wheel etc. It helps ward off detonation etc. I spend a good deal of time on piston crowns even working with flat tops or dished pieces.
Using the coatings is a good idea....I have Swain Tech do my work. I have seen pistons they have done come out of endurance cars and race bikes and the skirt coating(s) lose maybe a couple of tenths (.0001-2) at the most. FJ's run hot no matter what you do.....they can use all the help you can give them.
The work you have done looks professional and great....you will have a really nice bike in the end. Put some real cams and carbs in/on the engine and you should easily be in the 150HP range.

Well awesome. I'll have to do that. I know that on the inner radius of the valve reliefs it does an excellent job of making that cup smoother. The funny thing is this thermal barrier is so damn tough that it stands up to industrial sandblasting grit at 90psi like it's nothing. I mean a solid hour of blasting on one piston and I still couldn't strip the stuff. I am currently using a razor blade to cut the coating off. It's kind of like scraping but at a cutting angle with a whole lot of pressure overwhelm the physical strength of the coating till it shatters and turns to a powder.  The reason I am stripping it is I didn't get it totally mixed and it went on a little gloppy.

[skymasteres]

Well, while I'm working on getting this damn coating off of the pistons how about some more info on the progress?

I was looking for a larger sandblasting cabinet to do the upper and lower cases in and found one on craigslist.
It definitely needed some work to get back up and running.  Here it is on it's way back from Manhattan beach.



The motor was all sorts of frozen up. It was also full of crap.



Here's what the stator and winds looked like after I cleaned them up.




Here is the fork back on with the brake. I have been putting her back together slowly because at this point I find myself questioning where everything goes.

[skymasteres]

With the brute of a cabinet sitting in the back yard in desperate need of some refurbishment it was back to the garage to work on some more coating. (I'd end up getting new gloves and a replacement foot switch for the cabinet)

The crankshaft is getting a dual coating treatment. First of all let me tell you that this was a real trick to sandblast in my little cabinet. Lots of moving the thing around to cover all of the angles as I got it etched. Before that there was the half hour spent with acetone cleaning it off.



I ended up applying the coating in two stages. First I started by masking off the bearings and applying the thermal dispersant.



This was then baked. After it cooled down I cleaned off the non-coated parts just to be sure, masked off the coated bits and applied the ceramic lubricant. The finished product came out quite well if I don't say so myself.



I know it probably sounds dumb, but I'm thinking that this way the crank won't have anything sticking to it that shouldn't and it will create less windage... Well that's the idea at least. It was really overkill but I figured "What the hell"


Off to the back yard. This thing cabinet is huge. There was a lot of fussing over getting the thing rewired and the motor set back up. I ended up buying a new motor (well new old stock) off of eBay for it, and it turned out that there really wasn't a problem with it. The dang thing just power cycles when the impeller is exposed outside of the housing. When it is in the housing it works just fine. The gloves ended up being really funny. I was looking high and low for a set of gloves that had an 11" opening for this thing and ended up using a set I got off of Amazon. The funny thing was, had I turned the gloves inside out, I would have seen the brand name and saved myself a whole lot of time. (They were the same gloves) 



Can anyone help me identify this cabinet? Really I'm looking for a replacement for the glass. (Otherwise I'll just ginny something up...

[skymasteres]

Well it turns out that I was the victim of some creative stencil usage. I was looking an "I'm Da Blast" cabinet. The cabinet is actually an AD-A-Blast cabinet from Industrial Cleaning Machines Inc.  http://www.icminc.biz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91&Itemid=89  
Just got off the phone with one of their service guys (Larry, a delightful individual that was incredibly helpful) and got all of the specifics on what I was dealing with and how I really should have the cabinet set up. I'll have to check the numbers when I get home but I think I'm using a 3/8" nozzle when I should be using a 1/4". While they do have a great product the replacement parts aren't cheap. It's going to cost me $220 for a new glass piece, gasket, nozzle, and air jet. I guess I can't complain since, even with the motor, gloves, and switch, I'm still into it WELL less than I would have been going out and buying a cabinet.

With the way it is set up now, my air compressor can only keep up at 65psi and the media surges when I blast. According to the AD-A-Blast literature a 3/8" nozzle would have a 43CFM air requirement at 70psi. This would kind of make sense for the performance I am getting out of my compressor.  

Turns out the compressor pump I have is a Campbell Housefield model 3VB59. It has a rating of 14,3 CFM at 90psi. But with as hard as I've been running it I think it's well below that figure. I ordered a gasket kit and some new rings for the high and low pressure pistons. I'm thinking I'm going to roll the dice on the valve plate since it's a $130 part and it comes with the gaskets it needs should I have to replace it anyway.

Thoughts?