The Jatalian

[cheesy]

I figured I better start a thread as I am actually working on it. I picked Jatalian because I am stuffing an Italian Lambordini engine into Japanese Suzuki GS550L. Also, because Jatalian rolls off the tongue much better than Italpanese.

I have this. It’s missing a lot of small stuff, but has all the big stuff.


And this. It runs well and I have 20+ years experience with them.


The plan is to hack the crankcase off of what’s left of the Suzuki engine and use the six speed counter rotating transmission ala Diesel Wiesel. So far, I am here.


I had some misgivings about the transmission early on because I could not get it to shift, at all. Turned out that the detent for the shift drum was stuck. Once that was freed up, the transmission went easily through all its gears. All the internals are now out of the case and I am in the process of cleaning off the yuck(had both a leaking shifter seal and sat outside with the top end off the crankcase) plus taking notes and measurements. Also scrounging missing bits. About the only Suzuki GS550L specific bits I need are a front caliper, a rear brake pedal, and a seat retaining latch. The fuel tank may need to be a custom job but we shall see.
To quote Indiana Jones, “I’m making this up as I go.”

Will keep you posted.

[Diesel Dave]

Nice start, are you sure you couldn’t up the motor to a 15LD440 or 500?

[cheesy]

I would if I could but even with the Kohler name on them, Lambordini engines are not that common on this side of the pond. At least free ones aren’t. Even basic maintenance items are a crapshoot. I had to source a fuel filter for my 315 from Finland.

All that said, many of our customers (I’m in the rail industry) use small single cylinder diesels on track maintenance equipment, especially transits. The LD 315 was the engine of choice for years, so through what contacts I still have left, getting hard parts isn’t an issue. Good hard parts, though... If you want to see how strong your design is, give it to a railroader. The running joke is that a railroader can break an anvil with a rubber hammer.

The LD315, though, is being phased out in favor of Hatz. Hatz does have a better dealer network in the US. It’s also a pretty good engine. I just don’t see my outfit prototyping a machine that’s bad idea with a Hatz engine anytime soon. That’s how I got my Lambordini.

[cheesy]

Okay, I am going to ask for the groups collective wisdom before I do something I can't go back and fix. I have two choices on how to cut up the Suzuki block.
1. Cut far enough forward to keep the oil pump intact, thereby having forced lubrication through the transmission and allowing for use of a wet clutch.

2. Cut one inch or so further back and eliminate the oil pump and the oil pan, plug a lot of holes, go with an oil bath and dry clutch.

Neither option is better than the other and neither is perfect. Option 1 is less fab work. Option 2 is more fab work but a smaller package.

[pietenpol2002]

Will option 2 still require lengthening the frame to fit the engine?

[cheesy]

Possibly, it’ll be close. Option 2.5 would be to mount the transmission at a slight angle, to vertically, if it doesn’t mess up the chain line too much.
All might be for naught as I have a line on a Harley box for cheap.

[pietenpol2002]

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If you've got a Harley box available on the cheap, go for it. Greatly expands your options for dry clutch, belt primary drive, etc. And then you're soon gonna be wanting to upgrade to more horsepower. And if you've got at solid primary drive/gearbox/final drive it's no problem.

[cheesy]

Ah, well. It was cheap because it was less complete than my Suzuki engine. Back at it.

[cheesy]

Some things got done today.

A long Sawzall blade makes short work of a Suzuki block.


Test fit in the frame. Looks like I will need to use a frame stretcher anyway.

The white line on the tranny is for my Option 2 cut. As it looks like I will be stretching the frame anyway, I’ll stick with Option 1 and run a wet clutch.

I got the engine up on the bench by myself. I’d like to say I’m gonna feel that in the morning but I feel it now.

I took off the muffler, air cleaner, and fuel tank. There was just enough fuel in the tank for me to wear Eau du Stink the rest of the day. The blower cover is off to remove the fuel tank studs. I did find one broken blower cover bolt. I got lucky and it came out.

I thought that was a successful day.

[Diesel Dave]

I spy a Velosolex....good man.

[cheesy]

I spy a Velosolex....good man.

If you look to the left of the yellow V3, you can spot the front wheel and muffler of a 3800. I think we chatted on the VeloSolex UK forum.

[pietenpol2002]

Planning to go with free air and bin the cover?

[cheesy]

Planning to go with free air and bin the cover?

Nope. Just wanted to clean some stuff up. The inside of the cover is cruddy from grinding dust mixed with spilled fuel residue. Ick pretty well describes it.

Beastly hot here, as I imagine it is in the Hoosier State, so I stayed out of the garage this weekend.

[cheesy]

Still plodding along. Gainful employment cuts into time I get to work on this. So does stuff that SWMBO wants done around the house first.

I’m finding that my Suzuki kit is missing many important parts. What parts I do have won’t work without the parts I don’t have but I am slowly whittling that down. I’m just down to a handful now but they are very important parts having to do with stopping. Going I have pretty much covered. I’m going to need those before I do an “Oops” when cutting the frame.

I got the lump cleaned up so it’s not a greasy mess anymore. During our move to the new place, the oil pressure sender got damaged, so a new one of those is needed. I also will be making a new wire harness to remotely mount the engine control box. Luckily, thanks to the Yellow Pages, (Up yours, Google) I found a Lambordini/Kohler dealer/service center 12 miles from my house. They might have to source stuff from Finland but I won’t have to anymore. I’ve driven past this place for years and didn’t know it was there.

[cheesy]

A bit more done.

That engine weighs a lot less without the muffler. I sent this pic to a young guy that used to work for me, asking for his assistance in shoving this 10 lbs of crap in a 5 lb bag.
Kid is a heck of a fabricator. He builds custom cars but his specialty is chop tops. He says my DeSoto would look great with a chop and I tell him to look at the baseball bat in my hand.

Wrapped up the handlebar controls this morning, too.

[pietenpol2002]

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That hammer looks unused. Just sayin....... that things gonna to get a workout on this project.

[cheesy]

It does look new, doesn’t it. I also have no idea why I have a new hammer when I have about thirty old ones.

[cheesy]

The rear brake pedal arrived today and I had a bit of free time. Boy those tires are bad.

[cheesy]

The project has been moved to the back burner for a couple of weeks. Antique car repairs reared its ugly head and needs to get done before the end of the month. Three things; have a leaking expansion plug in the block, electric choke isn’t choking, and the generator is pushing up daisies. New expansion plugs will be here next week, have a spare choke but it looks like the wiring has gone south, and replacing the generator with a 6v positive ground Delco alternator. That last one isn’t as easy as it sounds. Needs all new brackets to make it fit.

And my fab guy is on vacation anyway.

[cheesy]

Not a lot happening. The DeSoto has been a major pain in the butt. I expected a couple of days, it’s been almost three weeks.

That said, the clutch cable for the bike arrived Saturday. That only took a month. And I was able to source a replacement oil pressure sensor for the Lambordini. That took some doing as this wasn’t a standard Lambordini set up. Something my people did. Turned out the high pressure sensor for many VAG engines was the direct replacement. $6 + shipping.

[cheesy]

My former fab guy came by today to look at the frame. He looked at it for about thirty seconds and said, “Yeah, no problem. I’ll have something, probably by the end of the week. It’ll be long enough so you can cut to fit and weld into place.”

[pietenpol2002]

Gotta love the fab guys. Can't wait to see what he produces.

[cheesy]

Gotta love the fab guys. Can't wait to see what he produces.

Me, too. Besides Tims’ day job, he part times at a couple custom car shops in the Chicago area. As he is doing this as a favor to his old boss, I don’t expect the parts super fast. He never could manage time well, anyway. But when I get them, they will be perfect.

Slight change of plans in the build. I scored an MX tank for $10 at a swap meet over the weekend that is a couple inches longer than what the stock GS550L tank would be. The king/queen seat gets to go away. Never liked those things anyway.

Found a stock Suzuki tank at the same place but $175 vs $10 was a no brainer.

[cheesy]

While waiting on the tubes from Tim, I started on stuff that I could do in the meantime. I scored a headlight/speedo combo at the same spot I got the tank. I also found a nice Suzuki speedo. Speedo in the headlight was shot, so I figured I’d do a voltmeter in its place. The hole was an odd size and larger than 2”/50mm. Took some doing but I finally found a 0-15vdc meter that was slightly larger than the hole. A little finesse with a Dremel carbide bit got it to fit.


I was really curious about what the headlight assembly came off of and did some digging. Besides the built in speedo, it had both a red high beam jewel and a green neutral jewel in front of the speedo. The lamp itself is a 5 3/4“ 6v hi/low. Threading was metric. I pulled the speedo and found Veglia, Made in Italy, stamped on it. Looked that up and could be Ducati, Benelli, Guzzi, Lambretta, or Vespa. I found a logo on the dial face after cleaning off the crud and I thought, “Damn, I think I know that logo”, but the brain was misfiring. Did a little more digging and it clicked. It was the Harley Davidson logo from back in the bad old AMF days. The headlight assembly came off of a Harley badged Aermacchi. I did a couple more mods and some dent repairs to the headlight assembly. Previous owner rewired the light, badly. So I ripped that out, to be replaced when I make the new bike harness. I replaced the 6v lamp with an Autopal lens and H4 LED.

[cheesy]

Got my seat and hoop yesterday. I learned that the tank is from an 85 Kawasaki KX250. Going to take some torch work and arky sparky to make this look like something other than a mishmash of parts.

[cheesy]

Got the tank to almost fitting.


With the tank where it needs to be, the stepped seat does fit. So, to honor SWMBO wishes,* I will keep the stepped seat for the foreseeable future.



*I have a sidecar rig because she doesn’t like riding 2 up.

[cheesy]

Haven't much happening lately. My employer has been running me hard. I guess they're trying to get as much out of me as they can before I retire next October. Still rounding up small parts and still waiting on the tubes. I think Tim forgot. I'll probably scrounge up a 4x1 pulley and do it myself.

[pietenpol2002]

Are you going to run that clutch wet or dry?

[cheesy]

Wet.
When I get the tubes on the frame and the engine where I want it, I plan on enclosing the chain with a guard that will terminate inside the clutch cover so I don't make a mess.
Besides rounding up a lot of small parts, I've also been getting shop tools. Finally got myself a variable speed drill press last week. Bought a TIG/Stick welder earlier this year. Also got a band saw and jig saw. The welder was new and spendy. Everything else came from ReStore for pennies on the dollar.

[pietenpol2002]

Don't you love that legitimate excuse to buy more (and better) tools!!!!