OMS moto guzzi : 02

Got the Guzzi cylinders back. Now I need to get some gaskets and rings ordered.

BG Uno

OMS cl360 : 02

As they say, two heads are better than one. The cam journals on the CB were roached, so that head was a no go. A few of the CL valves were too rusty to use, so a transplant was made from the CB. The CL head needed one new seat, a valve job, new seals, and a bit of milling on the gasket surface area. The cylinders got a little attention as well with a fresh honing. Now I need to order a timing chain, a head gasket, and a seal kit. Should be buttoned up pretty soon.

Andy

OMS kz440 superbike : 06

Made some upper fork covers, to hide the pitted rusty spots. I had some leftover exhaust tubing that worked great.

One down, one to go.





Finished the other cover as well as started on the headlight bracket. I'm not happy with this version. It needs to be tucked in a bit more.







Got distracted and started finishing the rear tail mount loop and fitting the tail light. The broken lens makes it look a bit crooked. Need to order one soon.







Just about finished with the tank mounts. They need some gussets added for strength.







The to do list is fading, but still pretty long. With a baby due any day now I am trying to get a huge head start to make sure this bike makes the ride with some proven test miles.

Derrick

OMS kz440 superbike : 05

Just about got the front forks finished. The cap on one of them was rusted up pretty solid, and just didn't want to pop out after removing the wire clip.

Clean on one side.



Not so much here.



Luckily the caps have air dampening valves, so I found a bolt with the same thread pitch and an oversize washer did the trick. It's not magic, and it took me a few days to think of it.





Nice and crusty.



Everything pulled apart and internals cleaned.



Drilled out the dampening rod holes to 1/4". Before and after.



Cleaned up the fork lowers real nice. Before and after.



I found a damn good price on some Progressive fork springs, so if budget allows that's all I lack to call the forks done. If not, I need to shorten these springs 1 1/2" since the LTD forks are longer than standard.

Derrick

OMS cl360 : 01

Snagged a '74 CL360 with a stuck motor on the way home from the 2013 OMS for 200 bones. She's titled and pretty much complete. The P.O. had already pulled the head, so I decided to pull the cylinders to see if it was just stuck rings or bottom end issues. Fortunately, it was just stuck rings. I have a spare CB360 motor with a toasted cam and journals, but the pistons and jugs are in good shape. So rather than bore the CL cylinders and source new pistons, I've opted to get the CB jugs honed to reuse with its original pistons and freshen up the CL head with a valve lapping and new seals for reuse the original cam. Hopefully I'll have time to drop things by the machine shop this week, so I can get the motor back together quickly. As for the rest of the bike: it looks like a new battery, some cables, carb kits, tires, and another seat should get her back to in order.

Here it is as I received it.



The headers are in good shape, but the mufflers are shot.



As she sits now.



The motor awaiting a fresh top end.



Andy

OMS kz440 superbike : 04

One thing I want to accomplish with this bike would be to get rid of the LTD look and go a bit more "superbike". To do that I need to get rid of the 16" truck tire out back for some better handling. There were a few 440 models that had 18" rear mags, but they apparently aren't that common in the US. With a little research I found that the first couple years of the kz550 had a drum brake 18" mag with some slight differences than the Euro spec 440. The drum for the 550 is slightly larger, as well as the rim width. Win, win.

Drum pad size differences:
550: Diameter: 179mm Width: 40mm
440: Diameter: 160mm Width: 30mm

Rim size differences:
440 LTD: 16x2.50
440 STD: 18x1.85
550 STD: 18x2.15

New rim and a standard 400/440 tail piece.



New tires. Shinko 712 100/90/19 up front and a 110/90/18 out back for less than $100 shipped.



The more I stared at the LTD frame, the more I realized the dimensions are completely different from the standard. I could modify the rear shock mounts heavily, but instead I bought another frame off ebay to save myself some time and sanity. As soon as it came in, I threw everything back together for a quick mockup.



Messing around with the tail mounts, I cut and drilled new holes a few inches back from the original. I still need to make the second mount to make things more rigid, but wanted to make sure this is the final position first.



Spent some time mounting up the new tires. I struggled to get the bead to set on both at first, but both are good to go now.



The cb350 tank in mockup looked good enough that I decided to check for clearance in all directions and see if it would work as a permanent fixture. Throttle cable, fuel lines, petcock location, etc. are good from all angles. I'll address the mounts soon.










I started pulling apart the forks, so I should have more on that soon.

Derrick

OMS kz440 superbike : 03

This bike came without carbs. It seems to be a pattern with most of the bikes that I get a hold of, as the one I put together for the first OMS shared the same affliction. For that bike I used what I had available at the time and made a single carb intake setup from some plumbing elbows and a 2 stroke carb. It worked okay. I'm sure with a considerable amount of tuning, it could have ran like a scalded yet slightly retarded ape, but I never cared enough to do so. I halfway thought about repeating the process, but this go round I want something a little more performance oriented. When putting together my cl350 for the second OMS I ended up with a ton of left over parts. That included a pair of spare carbs that just need an o-ring kit to be runnable. After some measurements, it looked like they could do the trick. These carbs are easy to tune and match the intake boot dimensions as well as the intake port. I ordered up some new intake boots and crossed my fingers that everything would work together.



The first problem I ran into was that the throttle spring and cable connections need to occupy the same space. The intake dimensions are narrower for the kz than the cb/cl350, so I scratched my head a bit.



I decided to swap the carbs and move the throttle area to the outside of the motor leaving plenty of room in between. This however requires swapping choke linkage from side to side, and moves the idle and air screws inward. I can still reach both, but it will make on the fly adjustments a bit more difficult.







The choke linkage swap was pretty simple. These caps will slide off with a little tug from pliers.



One side removed.



This cap gets switched with the previous one.



Linkage swapped.





Almost done. The choke lever has a tab that can hold full and half choke settings on the wheel/lever. It will need swapped to the other side.



The other carb body doesn't have threads to move the tab over, so I had to tap that shit.



Bam.



I assume I will have to tinker with the jets a bit, but unlike the stock kz units I can actually get parts for these easily. They still need a good cleaning, but I will get started on that after the o-ring kits are ready to install.

Derrick