Getting to Work .
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September 2007

A friend of mine in Bucharest invited me to a sidecar rally in the Carpathian's: I've been riding the bike regularly but so far the longest road trip I had done was about 160k. I've had some ongoing troubles with the carbs and ignition so understandably I was a bit hesitant to take off on a 1200 kilometer ride. But he was persistent, I worked out most of my bugs and pulled out on the highway on the 19th. The ride to Bucharest was uneventful, and the M72 ran smoothly at 60 - 80 km/h. I hooked up with Alecu there and a couple of days later we set off for the 160k ride up through Romania to the mountains in Transylvania.
The road and the weather were beautiful, and the bike handled the mountains fine (if a bit slow on the inclines). I was really amazed that a 54 year old machine still ran so nicely. We spent 2 days camping with an assortment of other Russian bike owners and had a great time: you can check out the photos on the Travels page.
The ignition troubles resurfaced when we started back to Bucharest: we had set the idle way down because of the heavy traffic in the city but the engine had inevitably overheated and I cooked another coil ( number 4 this year). The 6v ignition coils I'm using are made for a small car and they just can't handle the vibration and heat, but I had a spare so that got sorted after a few tests to find the problem.
Another 60k and the screw worked itself out of the rotor, leaving me with another head scratcher for awhile. We finally made it back to Bucharest though, and the next morning everything was running fine again for the 500k trip back to Varna.

Until I blew the head gasket 5k from home. So expect some good photos of a M72 engine rebuild coming soon...

parts is parts...	a small problem... you reckon ?	and this one looks like it was dragged behind a truck	naked engine	valves are out	grinding the valves

October 2007

Yeah, a few problems here I guess. Left side was running rich, the piston has a nice little hole in it now: right side was lean, not holed but it looks like somebody took an axe to the end of the piston. No idea yet where that came from, the cylinder and head don't appear damaged ?
Anyway, Alecu had just dropped off a half ton of spares the week before I left for Romania, giving me plenty of spare parts lying about including a complete engine and some extra cylinders. Man, there isn't anything better than a garage full of junk motorcycle parts, a cold beer and some Uncle Tupelo blaring on the computer...but I digress...
Getting the cylinders off her was a bit confusing:my wrenches were too fat to get into the mounting nuts, there was some head scratching on the head bolts and again on pulling the valves. So if you get the urge to try this at home here are some tips:
a) Get a crappy box end wrench and grind the cheeks down so you can get it into the mounting nuts. Expect to turn them about a mm at a time. Don't forget to take all the nuts off before you try to pull the cylinder and wind up wondering why it's stuck.:D
b) The square head bolts use a 1/2" (13mm) drive socket extension turned backwards, then a wrench on the square end of that.
c) To get the valves out use a 22mm socket with an extension over the spring cap. Crack the hell out of it with a big hammer a few times but be careful that the retaining clips don't go flying...mine stayed comfortably inside the socket but the chance to crawl around on the garage floor definitely exists.

So the pistons are getting replaced and the valves are being ground while I wait on new rings and gaskets as well as carb kits. My nice shiny "chrome" exhaust is coated in about a quarter inch of burnt oil, so that's going to keep me busy scrubbing for awhile.
Much thanks to all the folks at Russian Iron and Soviet Steeds for the steady stream of tech help!