The day came when theCL350 was back in onepiece, working, insured, registered and complete with its new H-suffixed registration number displayed so I could at last run it on the road.
I had already run it up and down my private lane a few times, so I knew that the engine and brakes seemed to be working ok at low speeds, but now I could give it a proper test. On the local 30mph roads it all seemed fine so I made my way to a faster road to see what would happen then. It seemed happy enough at around 60mph, but when I glanced in the mirror I saw something quite unexpected: basically, nothing. When I say nothing, it was in appearance a solid, light blue mass, completely blotting out everything behind me. It was a good way to stop the car driver behind from following too close, but I suspected that possibly something was not quite right, to put it mildly. Clearly the engine was burning oil, and lots of it.
You will recall that I had been a little taken aback to find that one cylinder had a fair amount of rainwater in it when I started work, though the engine turned over ok and seemed to have compression. I had decided to see if I could get away without taking the engine to bits but it looked like my optimism was misplaced. On the way back home the engine started misfiring and not responding well, but gave no signs that it was going to seize and I made it back under power.
Naturally, the first job was to take the spark plugs out and as I suspected, one was black and oily, the one on the right in Photo 1. The end of one exhaust was oily too (Photo 2). It looked like I was going to have to get the engine out again, but I thought that just maybe the problem might be a stuck oil control ring so I put the plugs back in and started it up. Funnily enough, it seemed to go perfectly well with no misfire and no smoke. The smoke only seemed to be apparent when the engine was working harder, so what was going on?
This story is from the December 2019 edition of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics.
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This story is from the December 2019 edition of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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