head and cylinder removal 1972 Six day

[Ed Brown]

Hi all,

I'm back after a couple of years and picked up a 1972 Six day with the lighting kit. very nice bike and factory original including grips, tires and aluminum fenders. The problem is it has been parked for 30 years per. the original owners daughter (the seller). her dad had many motorcycles and this was running when parked. anyway the motor is stuck (frozen ring, crank or what?). I have tried PB Blaster and WD-40 down the spark hole but she is still stuck.

I have tried to remove the exhaust to get at the head and cylinder but can not figure out how to do it. Can I remove the head and cylinder without removing the pipe?
thanks!
Ed

[Daniel P. McEntee]

Forget the WD-40, and keep up with the PB Blaster, Kroil, or the home brew mix of acetone and ATF fluid. Keep the ring soaked for at least a week. Maybe warm the cylinder with a heat gun to get it to expand and contract a bit during the process. Keep the head on, put the bike in second gear and gently rock the bike back and forth. This will provide some pressure directly up and down in the cylinder. A piston that has the ring stuck can be loosened up this way, but takes time and patience. Remember, it took 30 years for it to get that way! Another way is to remove the tank, then the head. That means you have to remove the pipe. To remove the pipe, it may be easier for you to remove the air box also. This is all stuff you probably want to take off eventually to check other stuff out, and will give you more room to work to get the pipe off.
  To get the pipe off, remove the springs at the exhaust manifold, and all of the mounting bolts, nuts and vibration mounts. It takes a kind or turning, and twisting motion to get it off, kind of like you are unscrewing it! Once that is done, then you can take the head off. This will give you a better shot at getting the penetrating oil right on the rings. Lube them up liberally and let them soak for at least a week and let the oil do it's job. Then, once a night before you go to bed, take a SMALL hammer and a block of wood, and just tap the top of the piston and watch for movement. Only give it 10 or 12 raps. Then oil it again and repeat each night. If it's truly stuck at the ring, it will come loose. Once it moves, oil it again and carefully remove the cylinder. The ring will probably be stuck in the ring groove, and you may need a new ring, but I have done it this way and have not damaged the piston, just needed new rings and the ring groove cleaned up.
  The secret to these methods and probably any other is time and patience to let the oil do it's job.
   Good luck with the project. I have a '72 6-Days that was very similar when I found it, but mine wasn't stuck. I did a general clean up, changed the oil, cleaned the carb jets, put in fresh gas and it started on the second kick. This bike had only about 400 to 500 miles on it and is in very good original condition. I showed the bike to Al; Buehner and some other POG guys along with John Penton at the 2001 ISDTRR in Park Hills, MO that year, and was advised to NOT restore the bike, just clean it up and make any repairs. You can restore something over and over all you want, but it's only original once. There are fewer and fewer of these bikes out there that are original any more, and if yours in in that nice of a condition, I would offer you the same advice.
  Good luck and have fun,
   Dan McEntee