2Tired Hal and His Rocket88

• Home | 
• Rocket88 Disassembly | 

Here's the starting point of the project. It would have made things easier if the lift was inserted from the other side of the bike. But, for doing this project single-handed this'll work. The nice thing about using the lift is that the bike can be moved around in a small space easily. I'm doing this project after work and on Xmas vacation. I'm not going to duplicate the FM on this. But, I will show what's unique about the project and "best practices" that I've learned.

At the end of the first day, all the external bits have been removed. This probably took two or three hours. As you can see, the seat, tank, carb, plug wires, coil, carb, intake manifold, exhaust have all been removed. Related nuts and bolts have been baggied and labelled. Baggies are cheap so I use lots and keep it simple. When pulling nuts and bolts off the bike, I find it useful to put them temporarily in magnetized metal parts dish available at most auto parts stores.

The topend is off. The heads have been shipped to Nallin. Things I could have done better are:

• 
  
• Should have drained the oil and primary before I got this far.
• 
  
• Should take off the front motor mount before loosening the front head since it's attached to the head, too.
• 
  

The only tricky bits so far:

• 
  
• It's helpful to have cutoff 3/16 and 1/4" allen wrenches for the rear rocker boxand intake manifold
• 
  
• I've found that a 7/16 swiveling socket/open end wrench is useful for the rearmost bolt on the rear head.
• 
  

Here's the bits and bags so far. By using the baggies, they can all be tossed in a box to make more room on the workbench. Hard to see here, but there's at least a dozen parts bag so far. I've found that I'm taking so much stuff off the bike that that baggies alone aren't going to cut it. I'm now taping/safety wiring parts together that came off as a group. This should make it much easier on assembly.

Since I hadn't drained the oil, I thought I would speed things up a bit with a hairdryer.







I had everything off the cam cover. But, the bugger wouldn't come loose whacking it with a rubber hammer. Looked through the FM and saw that I hadn't missed anything. I have replaced the cams before so I know there isn't any mystery bolt holding things together. The next morning, I went out and just started whacking a bit harder while pulling on the case. Sure enough, it came loose.







My next challenge is getting the 1 7/8" nut off the countershaft sprocket. It's left handed, so we spin it clockwise to loosen it.













Pretty straightforward to get to this point. There's a 1 1/8" nut on the engine sprocket that's right handed. Underneath the circlip and some bits, there's a left handed nut. At this point, To get the clutch out as a unit, you take out the large (over 1" diameter) snap ring not the little 1/2" one. Wasn't clear from the FM. Once the bits are pulled from under that big snap ring, the 1 3/16" nut is exposed that holds the clutch hub in. This is a left handed nut.



To sum up the impact sockets I used:

• 
  
• 1 1/8" for engine sprocket
  nut
• 
  
• 1 3/16" for clutch hub
  nut
• 
  
• 1 7/8" for final drive
  countershaft sprocket nut
• 
  
• 15/16' for the pinion gear nut
• 
  

Once the nuts were off the engine sprocket and the clutch hub, there's just magnetism holding engine sprocket on. Not much room to grab and wiggle. Being persistent pays off. Aligning it just right is the key to removing it fairly easily.



The transmission came out real easy. I did find a very small spring on the floor after I removed the tranny. I probably have a month to figure out what it is.













The stator, starter and oil pump are now out. All the major bits are removed. But, there's still quite a bit left. The oil lines, the oil pressure sensor, front and rear motor mounts have to come off, too. But, in order to get at the rear motor mounts, the California cannister has to come off as well as the battery box.

Here's the final result of disassembly. Really only took about 10 days of after work and weekend spare time. I've never done more than topend stuff before. The impact wrench made the job a lot easier for me. The cases with crank and rods weigh a little over 60 pounds.

Now, I'm waiting for Nallin to get the cases and do his magic.

The additional bit that I requested was a windage tray. If you have questions about that, check the XL-List archives. Nallin already has the heads which he's just cleaning up and making sure they're cc'ed correctly for the new 88" setup. They already have his stage 2 porting and valve bits. When I did the topend, I stayed with stock lifters and pushrods. This time, I'm adding Jims Hydrosolids and Crane adjustable pushrods. Millenium cylinders and Nallin pistons will round out the package. I now have a die grinder just in case I have to do as much surgery on the cylinders to make things fit as I did before.