Acquired a Saito 72 Golden Knight some time ago in a trade. I knew it had bad bearings when I made the deal and even though I really had no interest in owning a 72 I couldn't pass up what was basically a free Saito 72 GK. While in the shop working on modifying a carb I pulled it apart to see what I had. As I expected the bearings and crank were coated with rust. Other than that it looked to be in fairly good condition. No rust on the rockers and valves were in good shape.
I managed to get the bearings out and started thinking about how to clean up the crank. I started looking around the shop and ran across bottle of CLR stashed under the bathroom cabinet. Label says Calcium, Lime Rust remover so thought what the heck. Found a tall jar, dumped in the crank and filled it with straight CLR. Went about my business for about 4 hours, dumped the CLR and started washing the crank in the sink. All of what was rust had turned black and was fairly easy to wash off. After drying I went over it with steel wool and oil to clean off what was left of the black coating. The photo is the result, the line on the front bearing surface is a stain from the level of CLR I had in the jar and that is oil in the gears. I think it turned out well considering the amount of rust that was on it. Didn't get a before photo but the photo of the bearings will give you an idea of what I was dealing with.
The plan is to put it back together with new bearings, a reverse cam and my modified carb. After that I have no idea what I'll do with it, have no real desire to build anything that would need a 72 but you never know..
Topic: Repairing a rusty 72 (Read 1743 times)
