550 progress

I had some time to visit my friend Aaron in the shop this week. He works for Iowa State University in the agricultural engineering lab. Apparently "lab" is university speak for machine shop. He has access to mills, lathes, cnc machines, welding equipment and a bunch of other fancy stuff, and as a tuition paying student I can work on projects in the lab. (as long as I have safety glasses on!!). Who said college was useless!?!
We got started on the bottom end of the 550 to help it accept it's new 650 parts.

Heaven is a place on Earth. and it smell like cutting fluid. . . . 

First mod to make is to the upper case, The cam chain in the 650 is a bad ass hy vo style and the tensioner is a little different. These new slots let the tensioner fit in the 550 case . . . .

Next up is the spark advencer. The backing plates are slightly different in the way they mount up to the crank, so we used the 650 backing plate and took some material off on the lathe so the points roller would fit.

650 advancer with points roller installed. The 650 uses a cdi style ignition so this step is 100% necessary if you want to keep your 550 ignition.

The stator rotor is also slightly different. The out diameters are the same but the inner diameters are different and since the crank is made out of hardened steel boring out the rotor is the easiest way to get them to play nice.

I got my seals in the mail yesterday so I should be buttoning up the bottom end in the next week or so. Then the excitement of rebuilding the head, honing the cylinders, re ringing pistons and so on and so forth. Lots of ingredients in this cake!!