New Hijet owner, documenting progress, asking silly questions

Hi, my name is Alex, i am a new owner of a 1.0i 3 cylinder Hijet made at Piaggio in Italy.

This is my first post, but i decided to do it here in the "Workshop" forum instead of the "Welcome to the Jungle" Forum,
as i plan to use this thread to share my restoration ordeal experiences here as well as ask silly questions.

hope that is ok !

the Hijet in Question:

the Hijet next to its bigger brother:


I bought the car relatively cheap without a MOT/TÜV knowing that there will be a lot to do.

still, list was longer than i had hoped:

.) Left and right engine mounts defective
.) Dome bearings porous
.) left rear brake stuck
.) almost all rigid brake lines are rusty
.) Rusty coolant lines
.) huge rusthole in the driver's footwell
.) Splashguard front and rear
.) Front suspension rubber
.) Brake force regulator defective
.) Ball joints left and right
.) Rear damper rubber porous
.) Rust perforation in the rear right wheel arch
.) Heat shields are partially missing

Furthermore, of course, I wanted to carry out the normal used car purchase service program, so:
.)timing belt
.)Water pump
.)Valve clearance
.) all oils & filters
.)thermostat
.)cooling liquid


Since the car has only superficial rust apart from the 2 rust spots and the body is otherwise surprisingly good in substance, I decided to do everything properly, which means, i.e. axles out, drive train out, tank out, service & preserve everything properly, underbody derust and repaint, bend and flare all brake lines.

I am an ambitious hobbist and amateur tinkerer, but this project goes beyond anything I have done in terms of repairs myself.

I have great respect for the task, try to document and sort everything that has been dismantled, but I will certainly have many questions for you, the collective knowledge, here!

The first act a few weeks ago was the repair of the rust hole in the rear wheel arch, with which a shed-colleague, who is very experienced in sheet metal, helped me a lot.

Here is a leftover Opel Rekord E wheel arch that fit well:

Welcome Alex. Where in the world are you?

thanks for the welcome


i am from austria

first question:

does anyone know the torque pattern and torque numbers for the headbolts on the 1 liter engine?

the headbolts are re-usable if within certain lenght parameters, right? anyone know those as well maybe?


thanks in advance erveryone!

more progress and pictures tomorrow

i have lots of new pictures of my progress, but cant post them yet, because of the "no pictures after first post for new users for 7 days" - rule ...

Nice job on the arch! Very tidy

thanks, but the welding was done by a shed-buddy, my welds are worse



more dismantling has happened...


found those anti-drift counterweights above the spare wheel. anybody tried driving without them?



Clutch by Sachs, not looking too bad:






Gunk on the Intake side:




More gunk on the front:







new waterpump missing the little pipe:


camshaft knackered:



head off, more gunk:





at least the cylinder walls still look nice:


water ports gunky:



head voll of carbon and gunk:






oilpan lost some strength as well:


at least no oil sludge:


can the little oilpump chain be tensioned? mine seems a bit slacky to me...

got the back axle out:



whats really neat about such small cars is that you can lift major components like the rear axle or the gearbox eeeeasily by yourself


not so uplifting, check of a conrod bearing:


main bearing:



changing those wouldnt be such a hassle now, but finding spares is! i found the main bearings, but i can only find the conrod bearings in minus 0.25. but the surfaces of the crankshaft still look good, so i dont think i will need to have them redone, therefore probably need the normal size bearings.  but anyways, ill take measurements and also take the engine to a specialist, then ill know for sure.

if anyone has some norm size conrod bearings for a cb42 lying around, let me know

Camshaft for cb42 seems to be still available, but the rocker's surfaces are probably knackered as well and i cant seem to find those new. so ill get a quote to them refurbished alltogether.

that is all a bit demoralizing, that parts situation, and the fact that my engine is so majorly f****d ....  
but i guess thats what an engine looks like when its in a company car, not cared for by those driving it, and being in the city where trips are short and the engine hardly at operating temperature. ...  

That looks one seriously abused engine, lacking in oil and been treated with radweld or similar. On the plus side the cylinder bores look OK, don’t even go there looking for oversize pistons unless you have contacts in Indonesia where parts for this engine are plentiful. I feel your pain but things can get better, just takes time and elbow grease. Here is the first part of my CB42 resto video. The pump chain cannot be tensioned but as said if you hav3 contacts you can get them cheap...but...postage from Indonesia is not cheap at all! 

ha, ive already come across your videos on youtube before

yeah, well, its not the elbow grease im dreading, its the parts situation and exploding costs....

maybe its time for a winter holiday in insonesia !


how loose is the chain allowed to be? mine is pretty sloppy, but still not able to hit the surrounding engine case.

oh, and yeah, the cylinder walls look well enough for me to let the pistons be!

If you are bothered about exploding costs...stop now! That’s one thing you have to forget if the restoration is what matters. Will have a look at the manual see if it says anything about chain tension.

in my mind its not a restauration, its a repair. i want a properly working daily, not a showcar

besides, i think i have worst part behind me, cost wise. or so i hope.



thanks for looking up the chain tension !

Contact this guy on FB, he can supply parts apparently, the parts will be for the CB41 engine which is basically the same and there are some others which are basically the same CB26 I think (don’t quote me) . Quite a few share the same parts especially. Not had chance to look at the manual yet.

Oh wow, thanks a lot! that sounds like a hot lead

Had a look in the manual and the oil pump chain quote “Measure the deflection of the oil pump drive chain when the midpoint of the drive chain between the sprockets is pushed by finger. Deflection limit 7mm, replace chain and drive sprockets if exceeds limit” but that all does depend on them being available of course! Hope that helps.

Thanks a lot Raggy !

My Chain deflects about 15mm

oh my....

If you measure the chain link sizes you'll find its most likely an ISO standard chain which you'll get from an engineering firm.

thanks, will do!


managed to get other stuff done in the meantime:


got the paint off the tank (partly happened with pressure washing already)
rust was then gently removed with a csd disc:






owatrol primer on the good surfaces:


saturated the problematic stuff with ovatrol oil in 3 rounds:



brake calippers:


swim bolt thingies went out well:


brake pad studs (dont know the english term) were more stubborn, but went eventually:


air dindt get the piston out, but the vice did:


gunky mcgunkface:


cylinder bores looked ok after cleaning tho, forgot to take a photo, so heres one from before cleaning:


found an affordable repair set incl new pistons, so its off to the sandblaster for those guys:

As the tank is pitted.... and trust me I've dropped more than my fair share of Hijet tanks over the year - I'd be tempted to seal it on the inside. Something like this is good:-

https://www.britishbikebits.com/fertan-tapox-ethanol-proof-petrol-tank-sealer

Nice work so far, looks some work to be done on those callipers though.

HighlyJetted wrote:As the tank is pitted.... and trust me I've dropped more than my fair share of Hijet tanks over the year - I'd be tempted to seal it on the inside. Something like this is good:-

https://www.britishbikebits.com/fertan-tapox-ethanol-proof-petrol-tank-sealer

thanks for the tip. ive heard about horror stories about tank sealer getting unstuck an clogging up everything...    but thats not something youve encountered with that stuff?

Raggy wrote:Nice work so far, looks some work to be done on those callipers though.

they are already sandblasted and painted.

I am still looking for 0.5 oversize pistons and rings and standard size connecting rod bearings.

BUT i can only find those for the 993 cb23 engine. does anybody know if the bottom end is the same between cb43 and cb23?

I bet you would find the big end and crank journal min/max dimensions in the engine manuals

update:

seems like all the 993cc CB engine have a similar bottom end.

i finally found 0.50mm oversize pistons and rings in malaysia,
the parts were 55euros, the shipping and taxes 120euros

Malaysia is like the worlds Daihatsu epicentre! All their local cars, Perodua are just rebranded Daihatsu.

CB engines and EF engines are heavily tuned up over their. I think some end up on drag raced speed boats

Lots of Japanese salvage arrives on their door step, containers full of old front cuts and engines in containers.

Have you a link to where you sources those parts? Mine all came from Indonesia as the block, etc are the same in a few variants of the CB42. Postage is good, that was the killer (and being caught for import duty) but part availability and prices as HighlyJetted says is great.

Sure thing, i found my 0.50 oversize pistons and rings here:

https://grazzeparts.com/

https://www.grazzeparts.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=20182

the price was superb, shipping was of course a tad pricey, but quick.

oh, and by the way...

i am desperately looking for the two shafts the rocker arm run on:



(for 993cc cb42 engine)

if anyone has got any leads for some new or undamaged used ones id be entirely grateful !