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"Second Chance" Project

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Mike on a bike:
Hi folks, been meaning to do this for a while now, so no better time like the present to get it started.
A brief history.
I have been biking since 1974 at a young sweet 17 years of age and started my first chopper build in1975. I had a dream and vision but no money, I was earning all but £8.00 a week back then so money was very precious to me. While having a beer in the pub with a mate of mine who had rich parents and no hassle to buy new bikes I was telling him what It was I wanted to do, his exact words to me were and I have never forgotten them "You wouldn't have a 'kin clue what to do" Well to tell you the truth I didn't have a clue, just a vision a dream and a lot of drive, and his words only spurred me on to show him how wrong he was going to be. It only took me 5 years to get my finished dream to car shows around the country and also picked up a few trophy's for my efforts. I was a rookie but I learned a lot. Check here for my official intro with pics .. http://www.sohc.co.uk/index.php/topic,7614.0.html
After selling my chop to emigrate the hankering for another custom has never left my side but life and family got in the way as it does.

Fast forward now to October 2014. Well my life took a change for the worst, I had a heart attack! albeit a mild one but non the less was a wake up call that the years are passing me by and my dream of owning another chop was diminishing. Well I had just sold my camper van that I had owned for 17 years and had a small stash of cash burning a hole in my pocket and whilst browsing ebay I saw a chop that had potential, most of the bits I would need were there along with a few bits that will go in the recycle bin. ;) Well the registration number sold it to me FEC 154T or as I read it FEC**IT, so that was that, and FEC**IT I went and bought it. And so begins my story and build.

I have called the bike "Second Chance" for a few reasons, firstly it's my second chance of owning another chop, secondly it is the second reincarnation of this chop and thirdly and more importantly it is my second chance at living after the ticker timebomb.

So guys 'n gals come and join me on my ride to freedom and fun!  ;D

Mike on a bike:
This is where it all started. The first incarnation.

Mike on a bike:
I bought it looking like this....

Mike on a bike:
It had only done 160 miles from it's so called rebuild before disaster struck. A blocked oil way to the camshaft caused it to have a slight melt down.

Mike on a bike:
The previous owner had stripped the engine down to the pistons and had labeled and bagged everything up, well done that man. He also had got a replacement cam from the States so technically everything was there to start the rebuild. This was in November 2014.
My cousin volunteered his help in re-building the bike and is well placed after building quite a few top quality bikes himself, his latest project is a beautiful Harley bobber that really inspired me to move on this project.

I bought the bike in bits and delivered it all to my cousin who said he would get it running before Christmas, so I didn't even get a chance to go through the box of bits to check if everything was there.

Well Christmas came and went, as did January and February and a bit of March. Needless to say I was now getting a bit miffed. Anyway my cousin got the engine shifted to his mate who runs a bike shop and gets him involved in the re-build. I get a message to say that the oil pump is well and truly stuffed and can I get another one. Long story short I get one from a very kind chap in the States who GAVE me TWO pumps for FREE all I needed to pay for was the postage. Thank you very much kind sir!  ;D We take the better looking of the two and check it over and all is OK and it is fitted to the the engine. Eventually the engine is returned to me and we load it into the frame. We left off the cam cover to do a visual inspection of the oilways. We connect up the electrics etc and pour diesel into the engine and turn it over to flush any junk out of it and check that there are no blockages. All seems to be ok. We drain out the diesel as best we can then fill it up with proper flushing oil. Turn it over again and we can see that even though the diesel was getting through the thicker oil was still not getting to the cams. Bummer!  :( One side was OK the other side another story. Oh well we will have to strip it all down again. The guy that rebuilt it came over and helped us strip it all again and play hunt the blockage. Well we were defeated everything seemed to be as clean as a whistle. Then I remembered seeing a link to a video via this forum and remembered seeing the ristrictor jets so asked the engine man if he had cleaned out the jets, he replied with a "What jets"? So I showed him where the jets were and he didn't believe me that they were jets so we poked a pin down the middle of one jet and it went right through, then we done the same to the other jet and it stopped half way down! EUREKA!!! I took the jets out and lo and behold one jet was almost completely blocked. I bet a pound to a pinch of sh1t this was missed by the bloke who first re-built it just as my engine man had and this was now hopefully our problem solved.
My cuz took the head away with him to blow out all the oil ways again just to make sure all was well in the land of tiny holes.
After waiting for two weeks to get the engine man back to re-build the engine my cuz and I decide that we will do it on our own with the help of Youtube man.  :), even though I am no mechanic I had watched the video 3 times and felt confident between the two of us we could do it. And that is just what we did. Now the oil is getting to where it should with no problems.  ;D

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