[Verdoro 68]

I pulled the crank out last night - so much fun undoing all the work of the last month!

I've been trading emails with Wade at BOP, I really appreciate his responsiveness. He described the serrations in my crank "aggressive" and relayed some concern about a graphite seal working in my siutation. I can't catch them with my fingernail, but they do make a washboard sound when I run my nail over them.

He had me measure the diameter of the sealing surface on the crank (3.1858). It's on the low end of the recommended tolerance of 3.188 +/- .003 for the one and two piece seals. He recommended a light polish of the serrations on the crank and trimming the two piece down to get a .020 preload to make up for being on the low end. Being at the low end of the tolerance doesn't give me a lot of confidence but I'll give it a shot. He also said the tip test isn't a 100% reliable way to check for leaks since some oil may seep past the crank serrations.

On the plus side, I got my carb back from Ray Klemm yesterday. Nothing fancy in terms of restoration or plating, just a rebuild and a tune. I'm really impressed that he runs and tunes the carbs before sending them off! He ended up putting a 72/39 combo in it. Can't wait to see how it runs, but I've got a ways before I mount the carb on top of this thing.