Well Crap!

Yesterday I cleaned out the garage in preparation for tearing down the Harley AGAIN. I completely rebuilt the engine of my HD this winter. Started putting the break in miles on it and the damn rear cylinder base gasket started leaking again. This is what started the whole rebuild off. So, I made space in the garage to actually move around and stuff and started the topend tear down. My mechanic buddy showed up about half way through the work, with him on one side and me on the other it made for quick work. It's a good this thing I'm doing this. After I opened the rocker boxes I found two bolts had the locktite fail and had backed out enough they were finger tight. So one catastrophe averted. When we pulled the cylinders is when things got interesting. The front cylinder has a deep score that goes from top to bottom. Now these are brand new jugs mounted to a bored out case, with a brand new set of flywheel inside. The case was cleaned before assembly. So what got between the cylinder wall and the piston skirt? We can only imagine that there was piece of machining junk stuck to a flywheel that came off under load. We matched up the piston with the scar in the cylinder and close examination revealed a scuff on the skirt and a tiny burr that had been raised on the bottom of the skirt. We are going to try honing the cylinder and see if that will fix it. If not, I will have to have both of the NEW big bore cylinders bored bigger, get a new set of pistons and a new set of base and head gaskets. It looks like it will run around 500 bucks to fix this if the honing doesn't. To top it off my sole source of income, mowing the yard of a friend has dried up. I went over to check the yard and noticed soot on the front door. Looking further, the back of the house was burned badly. I spoke with their neighbor and he said a lamp cord started the fire and it'll be 3 months for the repairs. Fucking great. These folks are very kind and like most people they are hard up. So with a big deductible to pay and other unknown expenses I don't know if they'll be able to pay for the mowing. The real problem is in this town unemployment is so high,there is a myriad of people mowing yards. As as result prices have dropped dramatically on lawn maintenance. Last summer I bid a yard, small front and large rear yards. Mowing and trimming around a lot of flowers and trees. I called it 40 bucks. Wasn't even close. The winning bidder did it for 25. So guys are low balling work just to make a few dollars. So I'll have to post some flyers at the local stores and see what I can turn up.