When I scrub down an engine, I often find myself remembering the old days.
Detchi specializes in washing, and the work continues day after day.
By washing parts, you really get the component structure hammered into you.
Back in the day, when Asakawa Speed was in Hodogaya, the facilities were sparse, and we’d borrow N Nishi-sensei’s (from Kenmatsu
and also worked at Yoshimura) Matsu● Speed to do work way back then. (Way back, I tell you…)
The cleaning equipment was astounding in number…
1) A spray stand using white gasoline
2) A giant vat large enough for an adult to fit in, with automatic washing in cleaning solution at nearly 100 degrees
3) A pre-wash cleaning stand
4) A mid-wash cleaning stand
5) A final-wash cleaning stand
That’s how it goes. Just the washing alone makes your head spin…
Your sense of smell definitely gets messed up, and since you’re washing by hand, your skin gets torn up something fierce.
That alone would be bad enough, but when “Sunbra” and “Cargard” get added to the mix, you feel like crying.
Just Sunbra alone leaves you covered in sand from head to toe… it’s incredibly smoky and the worst. Cough cough~
Once Sunbra is done, you air-blow to remove the sand. If you don’t get it off here, the sand will clump up in the wash oil and
dirty the cleaning stand.
So you skip step (2) and do the cleaning again. Once cleaning is done, you reassemble, degrease, and put the entire engine into an
oven large enough to fit it, then heat it.
You spray Cargard on while it’s hot, heat it again, and bake it on.
Once the coating is done, you let it cool, disassemble it, and wash again.
The final wash before assembling the engine comes after Sunbra, so you have to be extra thorough.
Anything removable (like blind plugs) gets taken off and air-blown.
If it’s not 100% problem-free, the engine will blow up in one go. Sand is seriously dangerous.
As for tools, there are engine guys and chassis guys, and they don’t mix their tools.
In other words, tools used on engines stay with engines only. Well, that makes sense given the division of labor.
Sometimes I’d be told “Hey, go borrow that tool from N.” and I’d say “Sure thing.”
“Sorry, could I borrow ●●?” And he’d ask “What’s it for?” “Well, um, for assembling an engine…”
“You better wash it before you bring it back because crud builds up here,” he’d say, and I was terrified.
By the way, a lot of oil-cooled engines don’t have displacement markings.
I feel like there are quite a few from the Inazuma onward, so I checked with Suzuki about why that is.
“No problem!” Oh, really?
Hmm.
