Re: Your biggest restoration Oops!

Posted by jdemaris on December 12, 2004 at 19:31:49 from (209.23.31.233):

In Reply to: Your biggest restoration Oops! posted by old fashioned farmer on December 11, 2004 at 20:15:41:

I'll mention two of my screwups. One, was rebuilding my own John Deere 2020 ag. tractor with a gas engine. I decided to put high-altitude pistons in it for more power. I wouldn't do it on a customer's tractor, but for mine - what the heck. What a mistake. I could only run the tractor on high-test, and even then it pinged something awful. And, I am (or was) a Deere mechanic.
Another screwup spanned over 20 years, believe it or not. When I was a teenager I bought a 1959 Royal Enfield 500 c.c. twin Meteor Minor motorcyle. Ir ran pretty good, but I tore it apart and did a rebuild. Had the cylinders bored, valves done, etc. Put it all together, it started awful, ran like a dog with very little power, and I was disgusted. I sold it to another kid, this being in 1968. The guy I sold it too became a reclusive drunk, the bike laid in the woods behind his house, and that was it until 1989 - 21 years later. I was working for a Deere dealer and had to go on a road call to service a log skidder in Northern New Jersey. Being only 10 miles from my old home town, I stopped at the guy's house (who had bought my old bike). I'd heard he was sort of a mental case and was living on Social Security disability, still sitting home and drinking. I stoppped in to see him. He was in rough shape and delusional. He told me he was an ambassador for Australia, owned a castle in England, and a few other choice things. I felt bad and wanted to leave. All of a sudden, he mentions my old bike. Said he restored it and it was like new. He then asked me if I wanted it back, and I said "sure." I went to the woods behind his house, and there is was - half sank in the mud, right where he'd left it over 20 years before. Now, all rusted, engine set-up, etc. But, still a classic British bike and the chrome still looked pretty good. The English make good chrome. I loaded it up on my service truck and took it back home to Central New York State. Now, to end my long story. I pulled it all apart - with great effort since it was so rusted. Come to find out, as a teenager, I had mixed up the camshafts. They look the same and are not marked. One is the intake camshaft and one is the exhaust camshaft. Lift and timing is quite different between them. Switched them around, along with a lot of other work, put it together - and it finally runs right. First time since the late 1960s.

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