tappet trouble . . .

I'm afraid my shovel is going to be down for a while, boys. Was riding yesterday and lost power to the front cylinder. Limped along enough to get off the road, maybe a quarter mile. After getting the ol' thang towed home by a buddy, saw that the exhaust tappet roller had disintegrated. Took out all the tappets and discovered that the intake tappet roller (also on the front cylinder) was nicked and scratched. The other two tappets look ok.

The needle bearings (all except one that I was able to fish out with a magnet) and the rest of the roller are somewhere inside the gear chest . Today I will pull off the cone for a closer inspection . . . picture shows the damaged roller on the right.

Damn! I imagine That metal could be anywhere in the motor. Sorry to hear Josh.

It's just in the cam chest (gearcase). Here is a pic of what I got out of it I have to get a new cam, besides a set of tappets. The gears look ok.

I have Sifton solid lifters. I put them in new about three years ago and there's nothing wrong with them except for the rollers. I'm going to rebuild all four of them with new rollers. Then buy a new Andrews cam. The number on my cam is 69729. Forget which grind it is. Here's a pic of the side opened up. I have since gotten the cam free of the cone. I'm having fun with it - this is pretty straightforward mechanical stuff.
Tattoo thinks I caused all this mess by waiting too long to adjust that front exhaust valve. True, we heard it ticking a bit at idle about a week ago . . . Where ever the fault lies, I got a lesson out of it - "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today" has a whole new meaning for me.

The worst thing is that it's perfect riding weather around here. Mid 70s by noon and little wind. Have decided to fix the lifters first and start saving for the cam. Y'all can see where the lobes have been compromised. This'll make a cool paperweight.

Yech!

At least there doesn't seem to be any other damage inside the gear chest. Maybe with the new parts it'll go back together and I'll be on the road soon.

As I said above, I'm getting a new Andrews J grind cam. Decided to get a new set of Sifton solid tappets instead of rebuilding the old ones. There's a machine shop here that will put my old cam gear on the new cam. Those three gears have seen a lot of miles together.

Thanks for reminding me - I have an extra one in my parts stash. I remember putting in a new inner cam bearing the same time I installed the (then new) cam, tappets & blocks, about 3 years ago. Sure didn't get much milage out of those parts, although I can reuse the blocks.

It's in the 80s under a Carolina blue sky right now . . . we're having the most beautiful Indian Summer I can ever remember around here . . . trees are just beginning to change color . . .

That's right! The past few days have been 20 degrees cooler, about average this time of year. Today I'm removing the oil pump for a closer inspection. I drained the oil and there were no metal fragments in it. Took off the oil filter and drained it into a pan and found nothing but oil. Oil screen looked good, too.

Whew!

It's been a bear getting the oil pump off - should finish that today. Was going to yesterday but my birthday got in the way ye-haw!

The oil pump is about 6 years old and I'm praying that all will be ok once I get a good look at it. I hope I don't have to buy a new oil pump, not only because of the money, but as I remember, it was a bear to install with all the gear keys and snap rings dropping and sproinging everywhere. Great fun . The tappet set should be here on Tuesday.

Hey, Fatboy, still got good riding weather up there? It's great down here . . .

Last week we set high temp records three days in a row in the low 80's Now back to normal, 40's at night 50's during day. It is good to ride!

With what and where is the filter cut? I wouldn't want new metal particles being mistaken for what might already be inside the filter.