03 Stone Touring Revival

[rodekyll]

Carbon blows by the rings all the time.  It's one of the things that turns oil black.  But it's not the only thing.  If oyu smear it on glass what color is it?  If you look through the smear can you see any chunks or shiny bits?

[chaoselephant23]

Unfortunately the oil sump sludge was washed away by mineral spirits long before my post about the sludge. I'll have to do some smearing next time.

Think I am going to play things like this: Kroil the rusted out header gaskets, wait 24 hours, see if they can be pried free without a crumbly metal mess. If they can't I'll be relegated to taking the heads off. If they do come free, laziness wins. I want to ride!!!! I have too many other things to do to add something else into the mix like installing the rear wheel spacer the correct way as the dealer failed to. I'll take the heads off when I have the time to strip the engine to vapor blast the bubbly paint off the cases.

[chaoselephant23]

Has anyone else had trouble getting the oil pump key into the improved oil pump that MGCycle is selling? Any solutions? Oil pump shaft and sprocket key ways appear to be inline, but the shaft threads have the key raised above the keyway entrance. Going to keep piddling.

[chaoselephant23]

Almost done!!! Finished up putting on the new valve springs, caps and shims. Now I'm working on setting the rocker arm valve clearance. But I've run into an issue. I have the LH cylinder at TDC. I am adjusting the exhaust valve clearance. However with the rocker arm adjusting screw all the way out I only have 0.1mm clearance. What could be the issue?

[Aaron D.]

Wrong TDC is my guess.

[LowRyter]

spin it another 360

[chaoselephant23]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give it another go this evening.

[Wayne Orwig]

This is hydraulic lifter, right?
You can't adjust it that way.

[chaoselephant23]

This is hydraulic lifter, right?
You can't adjust it that way.

Wayne, I am performing the set once and forget it valve adjustment stated in the CAM recall parts kit installation instructions. I am to set valve clearance to 0.5mm with the dummy lifter installed. Lock the adjuster. Then shear the top of the adjuster screw off.

Given that, do you feel wrong (on exhaust stroke) TDC is the culprit?

[chaoselephant23]

Found TDC for the LH side again. Did so by taking out the dummy lifter. Putting the exhaust pushrod back in. Putting the intake pushrod back in. Held my fingers on the pushrods whilst I turned the engine over via the alternator nut. Felt for when the intake valve opened then closed. Then I placed a straw into the cylinder via the spark plug hole. Waited till the straw was stuck in the chamber. Checked the bell housing inspection port. S lined up in the window. Took the exhaust pushrod out, put the dummy lifter in, put the exhaust pushrod back in, pushed the pushrod down so that I knew the lifter bucket was up against the cam shaft, but still no luck getting 0.5mm valve clearance. Most I can squeeze out is 0.1mm. Tried a little before TDC. Tried a little after TDC. Can never get 0.5mm of clearance.

In the depths of despair last night, I came up with a hypothesis. I surmise that 0.5mm is misprinted in the two CAM recall parts kit install instructions that I have. That the value is actually 0.05mm. I can easily get 0.05mm clearance with the dummy lifter that measures 32mm in height. Found evidence to support my hypothesis here:

I did not use a special adjuster tool when I did my cam swap.  I drained the lifters and set for 0.050mm with a feeler gauge.  If you're not interested in making flat-rate on the job there's no reason why a practiced hand can't do it old-school.

Note that a dummy lifter was not used. However this is a non-point.

I received a couple of new lifters today via mail. When I compress them one measures 31.95mm the other measures 32.55mm.

Dummy lifter and a drained lifter have the same height of 32mm. On the other hand, the post has multiple mentions of 0.5mm for valve clearance. So I can't be certain of the value in rodekyll's post. I also doubt that both the CAM recall parts kit install instructions I have are wrong. One came with the tool kit, that does not mention cleaning the oil pump. The other is a PDF of a revised version that covers cleaning the oil pump.

I'll keep at it. Probably something I am overlooking.

[chaoselephant23]

Yes, I performed the measurements as stated in the CAM recall parts kit install instructions using all the special tools from the tool kit. I also double checked yesterday as I thought that may have something to do with things. I measured from the bottom of the upper spring cap to the top of the lower spring cap. All measurements were between the work shop manuals values of 35.750 to 36mm.