FZR250R Rebuild: Engine swap!

After all these attempts at getting the bike up and running, I decided to just get another engine for the bike.

So where did it go sour?
Parts availability.

I went onto eBay, aliexpress, trademe, the facebook FZR250 page, Yahoo! Japan and 2fiftycc.com and it was only on the last of those that someone had a conrod they would sell to me (the owner of the site I think).
I took it home and started installing it only to find that it was a tight fit and when torqued down correctly the conrod would barely move. This friction would cause a lot of heat at rpm and would soon lead to fouling again.

So instead of sanding back the rod and hoping for the best, I thought it would be better to just buy another engine.

Saturday morning I got up and drove down to Hamilton to pick up this engine.
My bike is a 3LN3. This engine is out of a bike that is one year older - a 3LN1. The differences between the engines are very minor, but from what I can tell they are differed conrods and a different sump.

Since I spent all that money buying genuine gaskets and cleaning the valve covers and sump, I decided I might as well swap them over. The valve covers are the same between the two engines, however the sump has a sensor in the bottom, whereas the 3LN3 has the same sensor in the side. Also, the oil filter is a screw-on type on the 3LN3 (same as a car) whereas the oil filter for the 3LN1 is internal.

They were an easy enough swap and the new engine also got a quick scrub.

At the same time I was able to drop out the old engine.
I’m not sure how much they weigh exactly, but they aren’t heavy. I think the bare gerabox/block weighs about 25-30Kg. The new engine seems to weigh a bit over 50Kg.
I piled some old clothes (in plastic bags) under the bike and then dumped the old engine out onto them.

With the help of my flatmates, we were able to get the new engine in. It was very heavy and a difficult job being a tight fit but it is now in place.

Today I worked on the wiring, clutch cable and cooling.
The wiring was easy, the clutch cable was hard, while the coolant… frick I don’t even want to talk about it.

I forgot to connect the lower hose between the radiator and water pump and coolant quickly came out. I then quickly hooked up the radiator hose to catch the coolant but a hose clamp fell out some where without me noticing. I then filled the engine with coolant and set about hooking up the thermostat when I saw coolant leaking out where the hose clamp was supposed to be.
So then I grabbed the nearest hose clamp and bent it out of shape so I could fit it around the hose without disconnecting it, but it was one behenchod of a job.
I bent the very tip of the hose clamp so I could force it to meet the screw and I finally got it on and stopped the leak.

Time to call it a day.