After I got it home and gave it a power bath, it was evident that there was something wrong. There is a hole in the bell housing. All of the tinware is rusted to hell and back. It just looked unhappy.
I began to disassemble it, which really made the air cooled engine more visceral to me. The pictures online and in books helped me understand what I was looking at, however, seeing and touching first hand make a huge difference. That was the good part.
The engine had either been in a fire or it had been used as an ash tray at a white trash party. It was nasty and the dust seemed somewhat toxic (I started to wear a mask while fiddling with it after the first time made the badness evident in my lungs).
The engine was fuel injected DP 1600. The plastic parts had melted, charred, or completely burnt away. Some metal had even melted into unidentifiable blobs. I did get some good parts of of it including DP manifolds with FI bungs. The heads are corroded, but possibly salvageable. I did not see any cracks. One piston and cylinder are stuck together while the others looked reusable. The block, rods, and crank look good.
Brent and I whaled on the case and trans to separate them. When I had taken the starter off, more deadly corroded ash crap poured out just like what was in the intakes. The two had become one.
Brent suggested cutting the trans since it has the hole in it. However, I had/have hope for the trans since it has a stronger single sided case. Besides, it would still be a hell of a time trying to separate the two even if we cut through the bell housing.
I had this brilliant idea to split the case. Then I would have the crank still stuck, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.
I whaled and whaled away on splitting that engine. Wiggled it, whaled on it, cranked on the case splitter, and wiggled some more. Then I wept. After much weeping, praying, and repetition, I managed to get one half of the case off. Unfortunately, there is a ridge ringed around the mating surface of the engine to the trans that was preventing the halves from just sliding apart. In all my whaling, I managed to break a non-vital piece of the case off.
So now what? I have half the case off, but the other half is stuck because it will not wiggle enough to overcome the ridge. I got some rope and the winch to make an engine hammock! What else would you do with it?
With the ropes attached to the crank and the trans, I pulled it all up tight then tapped the clutch fork with a dead blow hammer and the whole thing split in half sending parts this way and that.
The case half looked unscathed along with everything else. I wish that I had though of this first. Ah well...
I want to attempt brazing the case and the bell housing, but I fear magnesium fires...
