Problem solved. There's a powder coater right in my back yard... www.absolutepowdercoating.com. I've had them do a lot of parts on my Mustang. I called them, and they are pretty sure they can match the silver on the rest of the engine. If not, they havesatin and glossclear. Powder coat takes 400 degrees to melt, and if thejug gets that hot,the engineistoast anyway. Apparently they do a lot of Harley stuff without problem.

So, off to the powder coaters...

 

Ihave been using Dupli.Color High performance wheel coating part #WP101 Silver. This paint is about as close as you can get.
Bill

 

Marty had a 250cc jug sleeved and bored to 331 by Bill Blue, so I would guess it's possible.

 

Yeah, I prefer the KK route myself. Not that I think sleeving would be wrong though.

I tend to over-think things at times and my over-active noodle keeps thinking about the aluminum and steel expanding and contracting at different rates.

 

Thanks Bill for the paint recommendation. I went to the powder coater's yesterday. I took the water gooseneck from the new cylinder with me, and we found a pretty close match. The problem is turn-around - 4-6 weeks! The local stock car season is starting and they are swamped with frames and bodies (they media blast entire cars too). So, I think I'll try that paint.

As for the sleeve, this is what I think. Back in the day (early '80's), my friends used to run a RM125 and Yamaha 175 three-wheelers. They wouldrebuildtheir top-ends aboutevery 6 weeks(we practically lived on them when we were kids). Once the jugs were shot, they sent them to L.A. Sleeve to put in new sleeves. While their 2-strokes still wore outlike usual, they never had any trouble with the sleeves - not coming loose or coming out or scoring any worse than usual. And those motors routinely saw 10,000+ RPM's. I'm not concerned about it.

 

Make sure you supply pictures when you get it back!!!!! [sm=Flahssssss.gif]

 

When I sleeved Martys cylinder I didn't remove any of the paint from the cylinder. The paint does darken a little. A sleeve is installed with .004 interferance fit the cylinder is heated in an oven to 450 Deg. the sleeve isput in the freezer then installed. Yes the aluminum does expand at a faster rate than the sleeve does. It still cant come loose there isn't enough heat to let it come loosen. I have installed 50 some sleeves in the past 4 years only had1 that went bad.
Bill

 

Thanks for the info, Bill and Mustang. This is a area where my knowledge is really lacking. At first, I wasn't very warm at all to the idea of sleeving, but the more I learn about it the more attractive it becomes. There actually appears to be more stength on the skirt end vs the electoplated 331. The only area of concern that remains (for me) is heat transfer characteristics. I have read that the nikisil is superior in that regard, but how much of a difference does that make in real life?

Thanks in advance.