From: jearls@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Jeffrey David Earls)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: The full tale can now be told .....
Date: 29 Jul 92 19:16:10 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.



This is a tale of depression, frustration, anger, blood, sweat, bad beer,
lost money, supressed rage, exaultation, more frustration, incompetent
bike shops, poorly written service manuals, good sex, calm appraisal, 
success, and good friends.  It's a little lengthy so consider yourself warned.




As most adventures do, it started innocently enough.  


My Interceptor 500 had some 21K miles on it and I felt that it was 
high time that I at least check the valves.  I bought the bike with
16K on it earlier in the year.  The (then) local shop charges $180 plus parts
to do the job, so, being somewhat mechanically inclined, I took on the 
job myself.  

For those of you unfamiliar with Honda V4 engines, let me clue you in a little.
By the time you actually get to the point of being able to measure the 
valve clearances, you are only a few steps from being able to remove the 
engine from the frame.  Then, due to the convoluted shape of the head and
the number of tightly packed small parts, measuring is rather difficult. 
_And_, should you actually need to tweak one of the screw-type adjusters, it's
even more difficult to get a proper tool on the lock nut.  Add to this a 
proportionately high torque setting for the screw size and you've got
yourself a recipe for disaster. 

I spent most of a day on the job and felt pretty good about it.  The 
engine ran much quieter and smoother.  

Unfortunately, I was only able to guess by feel the proper torque on the 
adjuster lock-nuts.  (plot point number 1)

Fast forward about a month.  It's now early October 1991 and high time for
the WSU Motorcycle Club to go for a ride.  Bill Johns suggests a splendid
little 50 mile dead-end road in Idaho used only by hunters, but freshly
paved.  It seems like a good idea to all involved so we set off.  Once
we get on this road, average velocities increase sharply.  I've got my
Interceptor at over 9K rpm for almost the entire 50 miles.  At the end of the
road, I finally notice that valve clatter in my engine has increased 
dramatically.  However, it still runs ok and I'm 180 miles from home in
the middle of the Idaho Rockies.  I've got to ride back.

The ride back is uneventful but for a excessive velocity award presented to
one of the participants, but that's another story.

The next day I dig into the engine again and find that three of the adjuster
screws in the front head have spun clean out and distributed themselves
liberally about the engine cavity.  I quickly thank the Patron Saint of 
Motorcyclists and Idiots for getting me home.  I had ridden more than 200
hard miles with six pieces of gravel sized metal loose in my engine! =8-O

I find five of the pieces (three adjusters and two nuts) in the head and 
oil pan.  But where is the last nut?  Scott Larson has now arrived to 
impart sage advise and drink my beer.  Oh well, at least it's company and 
I can bounce ideas off him.  After over an hour of poking, prodding, and 
feeling about the engine cavity I decide to remove one of the camshafts so
that I can shine a flashlight into the engine cavity from the front.  I 
get the front exhaust camshaft out and lo-and-behold, there is the last nut
underneath the cam chain slipper.

Having recovered all the necessary pieces and seeing no other damage I
proceed to assemble the front head as described in my Clymer manual. 
(mistake, er, plot-point, number 2)  Using the described torque settings and
timing marks, I get everything back together and, after several invocations,
press the starter button.  'VARROOOOOMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....", the engine
replies.  Case closed, right?

Fast forward again to January 1992.  I haven't been able to ride much due
to the winter weather in Pullman but I take it out on January 19th for a
quick ride to Moscow, Idaho to start scrubbing in the new Metzeler on the
front.  Coming over the last rise before home at 4K rpm in third I hear a
loud "SNAP ... CLATTER ... TINKLE ... TINkle ... tinkle" accompanied with
a sudden loss in power.  The bike still runs but it sounds like a very
old 2 h.p. lawn mower engine with asthma and it literally does not have the
power to ride up over a curb.  I push it home and park it.  As a graduate
student in my final semester, I didn't have much time or the facilities to
deal with it.  Two days later I pushed it (fortunately all downhill) to the
local Honda shop for inspection.  They call me back the next day with the
gleeful news that the total repair bill will be $1800 and can they go
ahead with it.  I contain my mad laughter and tell them no, I'll pick it
up as is.  They had completely torn down the engine (on my approval) to
get an accurate estimate.  I told them to mark everything and box it up.

I enlist Bill Johns and his Volvo/trailer arrangement to pick up the bike.
Bill was also nice enough to arrange for storage space in a friend's barn
out in the wheat fields of the Palouse.  The frame and plastic gets left at
the barn and I keep the engine with me.

Detailed analysis now tells me that the following events occured.  First, 
one of the cam sprocket bolts in the front head spun loose and wedged itself
between the cam chain and a sprocket.  The resulting increase in tension
snapped the front cam chain.  The engine's momentum then carried the 
destruction to other critical pieces.  The final damage was as follows.  
One broken cam chain, one broken camshaft, three broken rocker arms,
multiple bent valves, front head oiler pipe, and a mangled upper cam chain 
cover/slipper.

Okay I sez to myself, I've never rebuilt an engine before, this could be 
fun.  I order the necessary parts, and other things like new gasket sets,
through mail order for ~$500 and get to work.  Once again, I'm proceeding
according to the Cylmer manual and slowly it comes together.  I won't say
where I rebuilt it, only that I did get the oil stains out of the carpet. :-)

Finally, the engine is together and I once again enlist Bill Johns and Scott
Larson to help me haul the engine out to the farm and get it into the 
frame.  After several hours, the collection of parts once again looks like
a motorcycle and that fateful moment has arrived.  Time to start it.  
After cranking for a couple of minutes, it sputters to life, much to Bill's
amazement.  It's making a bit of a clatter but I figure it's just that I 
haven't got the valves adjusted correctly.  I ride it the 15 miles home and
park it, intending to take it down to the shop to have them set the valve
clearance.  Word comes back that the valve clearance is OK but that "We
started it but there's still a noise coming from the bottom end."  

"ARRRGGHH!", sez I.  I tell them not to mess with it, I'll pick it up.  And
once again I enlist help from Bill Johns and his trailer to bring the bike
home.  

After agonizing for a couple of weeks, I finally get a real job offer for
after graduation and decide to get a new bike and let the Interceptor become
my project bike.  My new FJ and I then range far and wide for the rest of
the Spring semester and the Interceptor gets ignored.

Fast forward again to June 1992.  I've moved to Oregon and have a place with
a real garage.  The Interceptor now gets completely torn down again and I've
come up with definite plan for it.  It's going to get turned into a production
class racebike, not real competitive but a great way to learn the ropes.

Having lost all faith in the Clymer manual, I fork out the cash for the 
official Honda version.  This instantly pointed out the problem.  When the 
engine was first disassembled, the shop hadn't bothered to mark the 
connecting rod bearing inserts and I had subsequently scrambled them, missing
the proper guidance.  The Honda manual helped me get them sorted.  It's 
amazing how much noise that little bit of misalignment can cause.  All the
bearing inserts were still within specs.  

At 11:14p.m. on July 28, 1992 I once again hit the starter button with hope
and trepidation.  After a little cranking it hums to life.  "Hum" is the
operative word here.  There is no clanking, tinkling, or other incorrect
noise.  Just a pleasant whirring from every part of the engine.  Gawd, it
was a great feeling.  I let out a loud "Yee-ha" that undoubtedly woke all
the neighbors and rode it around the apartment complex a bit to see that 
everything worked.  Not a single complication.

Now that I've finally got the problems fixed, I'll tear it down again to 
replace the rings and the rear cam chain, which has a little too much slack
for my liking.  With a little preparation, I expect to have it in the Novice
grids at PIR and SIR next summer.  Yipppeeeeeee!

My wholehearted thanks go out to Bill Johns for the moral support and the use
of his bike hauling equipment, to Allen ??? for the use of his barn, and to 
Scott Larson for lending the occasional hand and not drinking all my beer.

To LaPlante's Honda in Pullman, Washington ..... GET BENT!

That's it, if you've stayed this long, I thank you.

But you're probably wondering about the good sex part. 
Mind your own business. ;-)


Ride Safe,

Jeff







--
===============================================================================
|Jeff Earls  jearls@tekig6.pen.tek.com |     DoD #0530  KotTG  WMTC #0002     |
|'89 FJ1200 - Millennium Falcon        |   Squid Factor: 3.67 and climbing... | 
|'86 VF500F - Igor!  It's _ALIVE_!!!!  | "Hit the button Chewie!"... Han Solo |
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