While a friend and I were putting the cams back in, my friend was not paying attention to the washer on the end of the camshaft.  Well sure enough he lost it in the cam chain area.  I really  wanted to  :guns: my friend. Well, I heard the washer hit something solid down in the motor and thought it was the oil pan, so off it came only to find that well nothing could really fall to the oil pan.  I ran to the store to grab a magnet but still no washer. What should I do? Is there anyway to find it easily without pulling the motor and breaking the cases apart? I am not very happy about this but hey shaZam! happens. Anyways let me know

Always put a rag in the cam chain slot. Try removing the right side cover, you may get lucky.

man, good luck. i did the head gasket change this weekend and it took me damn long. something around 15 hours. i sympathize, trust me.

plus i can't lean against my chair today because my back is so sunburned.

if you need tho, i've got a good place to hide bodies, just pm me if you need my services.

You have three options :

1) Fish around with a grabber tool.

2) Drop the oil pan again after shaking the heck out of the bike.

3) Ignore it and get a new washer.  The washer is unlikely to hit anything.  I did the same thing you did, anfd after no success with number 1 and 2 I took option three and did half a season of track days with no problems at all.  This is advice I got from KevinC, a member who used to race a GS and really knows the bike well.


Adam

I am going to try to remove the engine case covers and try that.  I might try the shacking thing as well. Since I removed the oil pan, and will need a new gasket now which will take a week or two.  I removed the head again to try to get closer to it but no sucess and when removing again the base came up some with it and will now probably need another gasket to prevent a leak.  I am to paranoid to leave it in. It is just my luck the thing will cause major enine damage.

Where is your body dump at perfdog?  

A week or two for a gasket? From my dealer I can have them in 2 days or less. I have bought whole gasket sets off of ebay from partsnmore & got them in 4-5 days.

I mentioned removing the right side case cover since that was where I found the shim that I dropped.

I would not leave it in the engine...besides the potential damage, you would have to order another washer.

Exactly one of my points dgyver. Suprisingly I work for my local dealerships and for some reason it still takes 3-5 days. I think because the owner always tends to forget about ordering my parts. I'll be heading to work it in a little while and will let you all know.  

Question: Since the base gasket raise up some, should it be replaced? If so should I replace the piston rings since I have them right in front of me already?  Kind of makes senses but just wondering.

To be safe, you might as well replace the base gasket. It is only $8. Not sure why the head gasket costs $25.

Replacing rings...depends on mileage. But if your cost for them is reasonable, go ahead & do it. When I ordered a set for 1 of my 79mm pistons, it was around $30 from Wiseco.

Regarding the rings while you have the cylinders off -

The problem is you will never get the rings into the exact same position they broke into.  So two things can happen:  #1 the rings will leak for a while until they reseat.  #2 They leak and never reseat because the wear is so much that there is too much uneveness for them to fill in.

My suggestion if you want to keep the bike is to get new rings and have the cylinders honed.  This may cost about 60 - 80 bucks at a machine shop.  The rings you can price at your shop.

The only other thing you can do if your real good is to lift the cylinders up untill you can remove the wrist pin clips and wrist pins and leave the pistons in the cylinders.  You MUST have the pistons even and remove the pin outward.

If someone has tried this PLEASE chime in.  So I know if I'm on CRACK or not.  I've never done it this way.

Paul

QuoteThe problem is you will never get the rings into the exact same position they broke into

um, the stagger of the ring gaps is for initial startup only, this is to seal as much as posible to aid starting untill the edges of the rings wear (seat) to the cylender.  the rings will rotate on the piston while the engine runs.  puting the rings back into the same cylenders (un honed) wont change anything, IF however you hone the cylenders out then the rings will have to reseat (break in again) to new cyl wall. I dont recomend doing this at all.   If however you hone the cyl and put fresh rings on, you go through break in like a new engine (cuz its the rings seating) cuz its Just like a new engine would be.

Hmmm.

Well after a little more tinkering and trying to remove the engine cover to no aveal. My friend is leaving to go to the gap for the rest of the week and doesn't really know when he will have time to help me out, even though I do have time, but the bike is at his house. So, my options are running out and it looks like the bike will have to be taken the shop and cost me a shaZam! load of money of to remove the washer and put it all back together.  This is a good lesson for myself and others. NEVER let a friend help you work on your stuff.  I will like he is partly responsible but I can't ask for him to help foot the bill. He was nice enough to help and give me the work place to do it.  I probably won't get my bike back for a month or better, but hey it could be worst.  Hopefully, my bill won't run up past $500.  Thanks for the help, I'll let you know what my techs and owner will let me do.

a swamp in franksville wisconsin. i know the woods around my house 3x better than anyone, and even i've never ventured fully into it. just a huge mess waiting to happen.

my bike seemed golden, but when i got it up to about 11k rpms last night the sealant on the cylinder head cover gasket gave way and oil started vigerously bleeding from there. luckily it was at the end of my 40 mile trip, not the beginning. i'm gonna get better gasket stuff and re-do it. i thought it was my head gasket again - other side this time. luckily it's not. i was pretty pissed to say the least.

Make sure that you're not ovetorquing the valve cover bolts.  They don't need a lot of torque to hold.  I use Seal-All as gasket sealer and it works great.