Wow...
First I unbolted the motor from the top plate and attempted to lift it. Nothing doing. OK. Then I thought it had to come off with the top plate, so I removed the four bolts in the front half of the top plate. Plate was 'slightly' loose at the front but the back wasn't moving. Checked the new top plate and there are holes back there for two more bolts. But they are under the motor flange. Seriously? So I start prying the motor up as evenly as I can from opposing sides at the same time. I managed to get it up about 1/4" or so and looked under it and yup, there are two more bolts in the top plate. I then look at the motor shaft and expect to see the drive gear coming up with the motor. Nope. I see a shaft and key all covered in corrosion being pulled out of a shaft or something.
It takes me the better part of two hours to get the motor off (I'm trying to pry evenly on the motor, but it's taking both hands so I started wondering if I could catch the motor when it finally comes loose. Good news...I didn't drop it) and the top plate. David says that after the top plate comes off, you need to take out the shifter forks before the gears. Well, when I finally got the top plate loose and lifted it off all of the gears/shafts came with it except for one. Oops...
This is the one shaft that didn't come out, but it was just sitting cockeyed/loose in the bottom of the head. It tried to come out with everyone else.
And here's what was left in the head. There is a little bit of powder (iron probably) in the bottom of the head. It has some gold flecks in it too.
There was this blue sealant stuff everywhere, and it was still soft like it just came out of the tube. But after pulling the front plate off I could see where the oil was leaking down the front and onto my vise. Scraped all that crap off. Good riddance.
The belt drive kit comes with a new front cover that doesn't have holes in it for the shifter levers. Maybe I can get someone to put El Hefe on it. :roflmao:
I'm going to sop up as much of that residual oil as I can, and figure out how to get the shift levers out. Then tomorrow I can deal with mounting the motor and drive pulley to the new plate and getting the pulleys aligned. Should be a piece of cake after that. (where have I heard THAT before?)