Following the advice of this group to my earlier email, I have now sent my cylinders to PowerSeal to re-bore the cylinders and coat with Nikosil.
The reason that I am having this work done is that the bike sat for a long time with the previous owner, and had moisture
built up
on the right cylinder (probably on side stand) which ended up pitting the bottom side of the cylinder wall. The bike has always run well, but has always burned some oil on that side. I am hoping that the reboring of this cylinder and coating with Nikosil will address this issue and just make everything stronger and better.
When I talked to PowerSeal, Chris inferred that if the pitting was too deep, their re-boring and Nikasil treatment would certainly coat everything but not result in a full seal. They will know more when they get the cylinders at the end of next week.
I am starting to think ahead to what my options are if they say the pitting is too deep to fully fix the problem with their treatment.? I see the options as: 1. Have them do their work on the existing cylinders and accept a bit of cylinder pitting with new Nikosil. 2. Find another old cylinder to replace the pitted one and have them use that instead of the pitted one. But where would I go to look for that as it does not appear to be 'in stock'. 3. Overbore the cylinders and then have them sealed.
I would appreciate this group's thoughts on this subject.
Thanks, Denny
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 6:31 PM Mac Kirkpatrick < drbeemer73@...> wrote: Your best bet is to call them, they are very helpful.
Mac Kirkpatrick Glenmoore, PA
"After all, what is adventure, but inconvenience, properly regarded?"
C. Donahue
Hey Mac, In a case like Denny's, Can you tell us what the work order should consist of when shipping our cylinders to this company? Do we ship pistons also and they tailor the lining to our original piston diameter? Thanks ? Denny there is a place in eastern PA that re-coats cylinders. One takes both cylinders and pistons to them, they bore the cylinder oversize then coat it with Nikasil (there may be another but very similar coating), then bore the coating to square and to allow the proper clearance between the cylinder and the piston to allow for heat expansion w/o seizing, etc. Now essentially you will never wear the cylinder out (ok, 250,000 miles depending on use, storage, mx, etc.).
They do it for many folks.
For the PA Airheads Supertech this last February, I got one?of the owners to speak to the attendees and he was very well received. Tom Cutter uses them for instance.
When BMW introduced Nikasil coated cylinders starting with the '81 model year, BMW was able to eliminate the iron insert they used since "forever", and go just with an all aluminum cylinder with the Nikasil coating, which allowed for far longer wear, a tighter tolerance and thus less oil usage, and the cylinder dissipated heat much better because the entire cylinder, being aluminum, dissipated heat far better, so less heat and heat issues.
HTH
Mac Kirkpatrick Glenmoore, PA
"After all, what is adventure, but inconvenience, properly regarded?"
C. Donahue
I am finally getting around to addressing a cylinder issue that was not too bad, but needs attention.? My 75 SS sat in a showroom for many years on a sidestand, and apparently built up some moisture on the lower cylinder that left a small rusted area.? It has burned a little on that side forever, but the power is still there and I haven't fixed it. I now want to fix it and need some advice on how and where best to do this. This takes me back to the Nikosil discussions - what is the current opinion? And where is the best place to get this done? I am about 35 miles out of Sacramento in Auburn CA on the road to Tahoe. Thanks for your thoughts, Denny
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