Japan Meets Britain
Went for a very nice morning ride with my friend Scott and his SuperHawk. His bike runs great, and I often wonder why I went crazy with my bike when his bone-stock bike is perfectly fine (I'm a glutton for punishment, perhaps?). Only did about 100 miles this morning, but it wasn't too oppressively humid, and it was neat to be riding on these two-lane backroads with the fields of 8 ft. corn stalks on either side. More new roads in the back pocket!
Don't know that I'll be doing a road trip on the bike this year, but hopefully will be able to get in some longer day-rides before the end of the season. I was hoping to either do the Barber Museum or a 3 day trip into Virginia, but it doesn't look like either is going to happen this year.  The dueling bar-end mirrors!
Been so long since I've had any problems with the bike -- I knew I was due for one!
Went over to my friend Scott's house to meet up with him and Lee and Jeff for a morning ride. As I entered his neighbourhood, I heard a distinctive and fairly audible ticking sound (like a metal to metal ticking sound). The bike had been running totally normal up until this point -- about 15 miles ride from my house to Scott's. When I got to his place and put the bike in neutral, it was still making the sound and a bit of smoke was coming out of the valley cover (subsequently checked the oil level and it was fine). I ended up not riding the bike on our ride (took his fantastic '85 500 Interceptor instead!), and when we got back, Lee, Scott and I checked out the valves to see if one was loose. We adjusted the valves, but that didn't eliminate the problem (I should also point out that the bike would not hold idle). We concluded that the problem must be coming from that camshaft bolt/nut (I had that problem earlier this year, and John tightened the camshaft bolt/nut, and everything was fine after that). I called John (mechanic), and he thought that it could be that problem as well -- he described it as a long thin bolt that opens up a spline of sorts that allows both the 'male' side of the camshaft to connect with the 'female' side of the camshaft, and there's a nut that has what looks to be a 'tooth' in it -- does this make sense? Admittedly, I may not be explaining it quite properly. In any case, he thinks that this has come loose again. Is there something that's causing this to come loose? Is there something that we're not doing correctly? John was convinced that he had that sucker tightened down pretty well, and hopes that he doesn't have to remove the camshaft again to get at it. Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas? Many thanks!
Don't know what happened to the three recent posts in my thread....ah technology!
Got a call from John last night, and he found the problem -- there is a drive gear pin in the oil pump, and it broke. Fortunately, there was no other damage in the engine (John thinks that I stopped the bike in time before any other damage was caused). Interestingly, the rest of the oil pump looked brand new inside (I think it's the original oil pump to the engine), and John couldn't figure out what caused this pin to break (age perhaps?). So what he needs are the two cam/rocker cover gaskets, the two oil pump base gaskets and the gasket for the oil pump gear housing, the oil pump drive gear pin, the head gasket and the cylinder base gasket. Hopefully this should do it. Hi,
Pins don't brake for nothing, inspect that oil pump very carefully, especially the pump gears and the surface of the housing. I think you speak about the pin that connects the gear to the shaft, are you ? Find all the parts of that pin, and make sure there are no parts in your oil any more. Sorry I didn't reply before, I don't come here that often any more, Jensen
Got the bike back yesterday, and all seems fine. John pulled the engine, and didn't really find much in the way of any damage in the bike other than that sheared pin. The cams looked like they took a bit of heat from the oil pump not pushing oil up top, but it appears that I shut the engine down at the right time before any real damage took place. He cleaned the cams up and they're now totally fine. He also looked at the pistons, rings etc and nothing happened to them. Looked at the valves, advance, and pretty well everything else, and no issues at all. He put about 10 hours in it to make it all right.
So now the bike idles great at 1100 rpms, seems to run fine (at least from my short runs up and down my street), nothing leaks, no ticking, the oil pump is strongly pumping oil up top, and John thinks the bike is running better than it did before. I'll find out the true tale when I take it on an extended ride, but for the moment all is well!
Took the bike for a ride last weekend to see how everything is and if the latest repair solved everything. Hard to tell, but I think the bike runs better than ever!
One new problem though -- I think my charging system is now having issues -- I can only manage 12.8 volts when the bike is running, so maybe the stator or the rectifier are the source of the trouble (I did replace the rectifier a few years ago with one from RetroBikes). I looked into perhaps getting one of those Rick's Motorsports stators, but it's no longer listed on their website -- does anyone know if they are still making them???
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