I decided to start hunting for the replacement sleeve for the Leckich 420/350 cylinder. I am pretty sure I can hone it and put another piston back in for now, but it may be on its last bore now at 88.50MM. I emailed LA Sleeve a few days back and I will let you read what they said. Any suggestions? I would like to make another jug or two setup with these sleeves but that seems a little pricey to me. Anyone have an air cooled CR450, 480, 500 laying around that I can get measurments from or buy?



----- Original Message -----

From: Herren, Gary L TSgt 90 OSS/OSBO
To: info@lasleeve.com
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2006 7:23 AM
Subject: 85 Odyssey sleeve

Hi,

I recently bought a Leckich Co. liquid cooled stadium racer cylinder for one of my 350 Odysseys. It is currently bored to 88.50MM and looks to be near the largest bore. I do know that the guy who built these got the sleeves from your company and built 1500 race cylinders. I know the largest bore for a stock 350 is 82MM and this sleeve is much larger. Is there any chance anyone there has records of what sleeve he bought from you? I am guessing it could be a CR450 or CR480 air cooled cylinder sleeve. If you have any pictures and specs on these so I can compare it to what I have now. Thanks for any help on this problem.

TSgt Gary Herren USAF




From: Dave Metchkoff [mailto:dave@lasleeve.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 6:48 PM
To: Herren, Gary L TSgt 90 OSS/OSBO
Subject: Re: 85 Odyssey sleeve


I know we made those sleeves for Lekich. But, I cannot locate any record. Whatever we build will probably be from scratch. Not sure on price but maybe $275 per sleeve. Let me know if you'd like to proceed. Thanks, dave@lasleeve

275 installed or just for the sleeve?

Not sure but I assume just the sleeve. If it is installed for that price, that's about the norm.

If you can't figure out what was used in there previously and don't want to pay for a custom built sleeve, I'm pretty sure they can sell you a blank sleeve and you can cut the ports yourself. That's a bit more work, but could save you some cash. Just measure the overall dimensions of the big bore sleeve and see if he can match you up with a blank with the same dimensions.

Good idea, never thought about that one. Thanks bill.

If you can find the phone number to Kustom Kraft they used to do big bore 350's also. The last time I talked to the guy there (years ago) I think he had a couple of sleeves still in stock. I don't know if they were the same sleeve Leckich used, but he may very well know what Leckich used back then. It's worth a try anyway. I know some of the Engine builders used an old Yamaha DT400 sleeve to make big bore 350's, but it has been so long now I don't recall any of the specifics.

btw,I have no ties to LA Sleeve or any other company for profit motive


sheeet, what you talking about Willis?

$275. for a fresh jug sounds like the deal of the year, just hope there aren't issues KX King spoke of, i would of sent it yesterday

one rebuild would end up costing close to that, just the extra meat (heat sink) alone is worth the money

Resleeve FL350 cylinder $319.95
that's the price from A$#5#$#$$%ought websites services page-and his work is spotty in many peoples eyes -so the $275.00 doesnt seem to be that bad.

I wouldn't let AfterThought Mutterspots regrease the crank journals on a Wal-Mart tricycle, much less touch a custom big bore Jerry Leckich cylinder. Don't let him get within 20 feet of that cylinder. He is not capable of repairing that cylinder correctly. For an over inflated fee he will map it, trash it, and mail it back to you.

Gary, if you need a professional to give you proper advice for repairing that cylinder, drop me a PM and I will put you in touch with a man that built and raced 350 engines for 17 years. He can and will set you on the right path.

We are discussing the preservation of a small piece of Odyssey history. I knew Jerry Leckich personally and would be distraught to know his work was handed to an amateur for repair. Jerry Leckich took an immense amount of Odyssey knowledge with him to his grave. He would always answer any questions, but he can't do that now since HE DIED. We can't call him and ask him what we need to know. We can only speculate. We certainly seem to be missing him now.

You can't just toss a custom big bore cylinder into a box with a money order and mail it to LA Sleeve and expect them to resleeve it with good results. This is an already once big time over-bored and re-sleeved cylinder. It may in fact require a $275 custom built sleeve (before installation) to get the correct press fit into the already over bored cylinder. A resleeve of a resleeve is what we are actually looking at here. This is by no means a stock cylinder sleeve installation and it will require special attention to get it right. It's not an easily addressed repair. This go-round is critical whether anyone recognizes it or not. A bit of caution and research could go a long way for preserving what Gary has. I'm sure he doesn't want to end up with a piece of garbage and if he is not careful, he will end up with an expensive piece of trash. I'm sure that cylinder was originally well over a grand from Leckich, and that was back in the days when you could buy a good loaf of bread for 50 cents.

Bill has it right on the money. I want it done right, and not by a local shop or "other" expert. "Someone" did offer his services back in the spring when I was building her up. I just figured he wanted to copy the port openings, roof angles and other speciality tricks that Mr. Leckich learned though trial and error over the years. I didn't want anyone claiming his work as thier own. Maybe its just trivial of me, but that's how I was raised.

I do know a guy who worked for Leckich back then. He said nothing but good things about him too. He said they made 3 runs of 100 each on those cylinders. Some were full race and some "recreational". The race versions were $1800 and came with a kit including the exhaust pipe, big carb, aluminium radiator w/ associated mounting hardware, and a few other goodies.

I'll PM you Bill, and thanks for the help too.

Gary

Their is no need for someone to copy porting of others you can learn to do it yourself rather easily http://macdizzy.com/atc.htm

No doubt anybody running a commercial business and charging professional prices developed his own engines rather than ride the coat tails of others.... then again the last time I asked the mutt what were the two premier 2 stroke Engine building books he couldn't name even ONE of them, I doubt then he had read them since he could not name them.