After I managed to get the front head off, I clearly found my compression leak. Look at the thin missing section just below the top bolt hole in this picture. I could also see evidence that the bolt was being eroded on the inside by hot exhaust gases.
Really lucky that bolt didn't break when I took it out!
I will try to clean everything up tomorrow. With some luck, I might just have a Chief with good compression on TWO jugs.
Nice. You'll have to let us know if you get any indication of cylinder wear or bore size. Are you able see the valves well enough to guess their condition? Are concerned at all about where that chuck of gasket went?
ReplyDeleteThe front cylinder is perfect!! Looks brand new. I had to go buy telescoping guages and I will try to measure the bore tomorrow, but the cylinder couldn't be any nicer... The valve seats look a little crusty. May try to clean them up a bit.
ReplyDeleteJust posting this to document it for future reference. The front cylinder measured out at 3.310". This translates to .060" overbore, from the stock 3.250" bore. The last overbore, but it looked brand new, so the top overhaul must have been pretty recent.
ReplyDeleteThe stroke measured out at 4 7/16", which means my Indian is still a 74". To convert to an 80" in the last years of Chief production, Indian stroked the 74" by 3/8". If that had been done to mine, I would have known because the stroke would have been 4 13/16".