I dug out my shims and measured some . ProX shims are .0005 smaller than the OEM according to my measurements.
This is an interesting mystery.
Wayne
I just love these detective shows, nothing like aI looked at the poor dead 09 today and counted only 9 dowel pins in the head. The plot thickens.... Now I have to fetch the cam caps out of storage and see if any dowels pins are in them.good who done it...er... I mean a good what done it.
The part I don't like is...
... when they end with "to be continued."
I measured all my shims as well. The "used" OEM shims that still had the numbers visible (the black pain on most had worn off) were off in a few instances. All of the hot cam and ProX shims were nearly spot on. I don't know wether shims wear with use or not. If not, Kawasaki's shims are not well controlled quality wise..
Any damage to the bores for the buckets or on the outside of them?
Any evidence of something that got jammed in the cam or buckets causing it to stop, or hold a valve open?
How many valves are damaged?
Are they all in the same cylinder?
Ivan
are you talking about the outside diameter, or the actual thickness' ?
I was talking outside diameter as I thought that was Ivans concern. I measured all of the shims I removed as well as the ones I installed. I still ended up taking the cams out again and redoing some. I had torqued to half spec and remeasured and all seemed good. After final torque things changed! Nice thing about doing your own work is you can afford to take your time.That and North Dakota winters are long.
As far as thickness all shims I measured were good.
Wayne
Folks,
Not even the magazines have given you these tests and a window to see this information.
Knowing how this system functions makes it easy to understand how a botched valve adjustment can lead to a blown engine.
Example;
Mechanic installs C14 intake cam one tooth advanced by accident.... under light to moderate throttle he would notice nothing wrong and could use the bike indefinitely like this as long as he never gives more than 50% or more throttle.....
Once the throttle is opened more than the amount needed to push the cam into full advance position, there would be mechanical valve to piston contact and failure.
Once there are broken parts in the cylinder destroying things and jamming things cam(s) valves ....etc... and cannot rotate due to mechanical interference, the weakest link will give in.... at high rpm, all kinds of things will shear off and get destroyed.
The key here is that there are 2 of these failures that are documented here on this board and also on COG and the common link is that they both failed after valve adjustment. One failed immediately.....
The other one took longer, I suspect due to gentle riding habits.
One was due to his own mistake while adjusting his own valves.
Ivan
Got my stored parts out of storage. No sign of the tenth dowel pin.
Tough to read through photos but it looks like the bottom / left bearing cap set, right cap specifically, is scored and may have had excessive journal pressure.
If the cam caps are aligned the way they go in the engine (though upside- down of course) then it would be cylinder #2, intake cam specifically that took the brunt of the pressure.
Just speculating based on one photo so do not take my comments with much weight.
Brian
The one I believe you are referring to is the left intake. What's showing in the pic seems more like burnishing than scoring to the eyeball up close. I am thinking what I feel stuck in the inboard #2 ex valve bore is the missing dowel pin.
how did it manage to get on there, ? with the cam bucket sitting in place over the retainer and valve... ?After thinking about it some more after posting that I realized it probably coudn't get in there. Feeling for it again last night it wasn't there any more, I must have loosened it and it fell out of reach. Anyway it probably was a keeper I was feeling.
there's about .010" free clearance around that cam bucket..
I also don't see any clear and glaring evidence of anything, dowel pin included, bouncing around and smooshing under the free spaces of the cam saddle blocks adjacent to any lobes.. and I've seen a lot of destroyed top ends over the last 45 years..
Able to look at the camshafts and caps closely and in good light I feel confident the cams did not seize.