29 September 2007

What a week

About 3 years ago i wrecked my wife's Chevy S-10 blazer. Since the insurance paid it off, i decided to keep it and make a mud buggy out of it. I cut and chopped and took it to Louisiana with me. We rode it around and had some fun. I decided to leave it at my Dad's house since we would only use it on the lease during hunting season.

I come on back home and i come across this International Scout for a hell of a price. I buy the Scout and tell my Brother he can have the blazer if he wants it. He ask what i want for it and i said "You can have it"

He calls be a month or so later and tells me his son wants to trade an old 4-Wheeler for it. I said "He can have it" so he says " where do you want me to put the 4-wheeler?"

I said just put it in Dad's barn and i will get it later. So this summer the wife and I go home to Louisiana and Dad says " you gonna take that 4-wheeler home?" I look at him and say "What 4-wheeler?"

I forgot all about that thing. My brother and I go to the barn and drag it out. It looks like crap. I figured i would take it home and see if i can get it running. They told me that it smoked so bad it would foul a plug in about 30 minutes. It is a 1997 Lakota 300. I call a few gear head friends of mine and i end up taking the bike to my friends house in Borger TX. We tore it down and found out why it smoked so bad. Someone rebuilt the top end and didn't know what they were doing. It was off time and the intake valve was bent.

I pulled the jug and sent it to LA Sleeve and had it bored and re sized to original, Weisco piston and gasket set. We put in two new valves and guides and a timing chain. We had to cut off the drive chain so i had to buy a new one of those as well.
We put it all back together and we had 13:1 compression. We put in a new plug and can not get the bike to start. We try everything and then we notice that the coil is hot wired to the battery. Why someone did this i will never know but they did. So i went and bought a new battery and it fired up on the first push of the button. We got it running but it ran like crap.

So now i have the bike back in my garage and the carb is soaking in the parts washer. once i rebuild the carb it should run just fine. Not bad for a bike that sat in a barn for 3 years.

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