Hi All. Be warned - this is a long-winded post.
It's been a while. Congrats to Tom for January BOTM. The last 6 months of 2015 have been tough - lost a few family members and Jazzy too. Also, was side-tracked by the dark side with mod-ing out a 2007 Ducati Sports Classic and a RD350 with Ninja EX250 suspension front & rear.
I've had 4 nagging issues with the Danielle #5. Persistent oil leak, popping out of gear, rear wheel bearing retainer self-loosening and dealing with a m-unit voltage vampire.
1. The rear wheel bearing retainer was the easiest fix from at least a diagnostic stand point. I did not stake it on install. The bearing was well seated. The retainer was well tightened. But it kept loosening and I would re-tighten without removing rear wheel. Well, I finally removed the rear wheel and unscrewed the retainer all the way to clean out threads (remember, it has left hand threads). On reinstall I noticed that the sprocket side bearing must have moved a tad because the retainer now sits a tad proud about 1mm after tightening. I did what I could to re-seat the bearing, but did not want to smack it too hard and crunch the collar. I tightened as much as possible and staked it against the hub in 4 places, It is still proud by about 1 mm but I angled the punch and it hasn't moved since.
2. The dreaded post-rebuild oil leak. I detected the leak as it was dripping from the top fin at cylinder #1.....the low side when on the side stand. It was obvious that it was leaking from the corner of the valve cover. So I pulled the cover and it seemed that the gasket was not "proud" enough. I cleaned the mating surfaces as well as possible, purchased a new squiggly gasket (this time I copper spray coated both sides), and laid a tiny bead of Hondabond in the gasket groove before laying in the new gasket. I also replaced and resealed the pucks with Hondabond just in case.
Fired it up - the cover is leak free, but a small amount of oil is leaking down the top fin of the jugs (again, with bike on side stand) and onto the alternator cover. The leak is coming from the center of the motor (exhaust side) along the joint between jugs and head. I used an MLS gasket. I was convinced that I somehow f-ed up the head gasket, or forgot an o-ring, or miscalculated using an MLS gasket instead of OEM. Talk about being deflated. The last thing I want to do is pull the head after just replacing the valve cover and re-adjusting the valves. I had complied with head torqueing protocol and final torque was 21.5 lbs (HD studs) on 2 different torque wrenches. I made sure head bolts #13 and #14 were set at tight as possible (lucky they didn't break being 6mm hex). I was certain the leak is emanating from the area of the center exhaust side 6mm hex head bolt.
I was pulling the tank, when I thought, let's try the foot powder spray trick just to be 100% sure. I was trying to think of any solution short of pulling the head - even using the stop leak additive (oh no!). I degreased the engine with a foaming product, blew compressed air to dry, the I drove off to CVS for foot powder spray. The leak started showing weeping at about the center of the MLS gasket -exhaust side, and slowly flowed down toward cylinder #1 on the top fin of the jugs. OK - pulling the head is inevitable. Frustrated -- back to the Ducati for a few months. Then - with a LED laser point flashlight, I detected a very tiny stream of oil against the white powder coming from what I call the #3 cylinder spark plug bay. It turned under the #3 exhaust and leaked onto the top jug fin. I had not seen this before despite intense inspection to find the leak.
OK...phew. What a relief. Not the head gasket as thought. It's a puck. Much easier to pull the valve cover again and re-seal the pucks for a 3rd time. But it didn't quite make sense to me while nursing a beer. I knew those pucks were well sealed. Maybe the valve cover still leaks but if it does, where? I degreased the bike again and this time sprayed the foot powder all the way around the area of the valve cover gasket.
Eureka!!!! No leak from the valve cover gasket. It's the tach cap (removable housing) leaking!!! The powder made it easy to spot. I had not seen it before because the polished valve cover camo-ed the clear oil from my old, tired eyes. It leaked at the very bottom of the cap and flowed into the #3 bay. Soooo happy! This should be an easy fix. I started up the bike and used a rag to soak up the oil at the leaking cap before it could run into the bay (at the expense of a hand burn). And after several minutes of run time, no more leak down along the top fin of the jugs.
Here's what happened. My tach cap post broke off and since I am not using the mechanical cable, I used a bead of "form-a-gasket" to seal the cap. It obviously didn't work. (I pirated the below pic from this forum to illustrate what my broken tach cap looks like).
If anyone here has a solution for a leak free seal for the cap without having to buy a new, unbroken one, please chime in.
3. False neutrals. Popping out of gear while riding is random, sometimes it happens in 2nd, more often 3rd and 4th, but with no pattern with regard to RPMs. There is no issue finding neutral or first gear. I am confident that upon my reassembly of the cases that the dogs had nice clean edges, the forks were not bent and the drum in excellent condition. But reading the multiple posts about ghost neutrals on the forum, the knee-jerk recommended fix for false neutrals is - "sorry to have to tell you, but you need to split the cases." Again, no way in hell did I want to do this on a new rebuild.
Instead, I thought it best to first inspect the drum stopper and neutral detents before doing the drastic case split. Last night, with renewed enthusiasm for Daniele having solved the oil leak, I pulled the clutch basket. Instant problem recognition. The drum stopper detent was not riding in the valleys of the star wheel at the end of the drum. Depending on the gear, it was riding on the ends of the star's points, and the inner surface of the detent circle was rubbing against the end of the shift drum "disc" immediately behind the star (where the neutral detent rides on its top edge). See pic below. A close look reveals the wear marks around the outside circumference of the neutral wheel - the friction between the two surfaces is preventing the detent from falling into the valleys - hence, the inability to "stop" the drum from plunking into a false neutral....I think this is what is happening anyway. Dave, Two Tired, do you concur?
The collar for the detent swing arm is in excellent condition - no slop, as are the springs. The 6mm bolt securing the detent arm thru the collar and the bracket to the case is seated, but not overly tightened. When I back off the 6mm hex bolt, the detent falls perfectly into the valleys of the star. So I tried a thin spacer between the detent arm and the bracket before securing to the case. This allowed the bolt to be tightened and the detent to be in perfect position to fall into the valleys, but the collar rubs against the washer and with the tightened bolt, the detent wheel will not fall into the valleys under spring tension as it should.
I need to find a solution, like re-bending the detent arm, or not seating the hex bolt all the way, using red locktite. But I am confident that once rectified, the false neutrals will be a thing of the past.
4. m-unit voltage vampire. Cal J - this is for you. If you recall, when we were diagnosing the battery drain last year (with the m-unit off) we had come up with a fix. It was, I believe, taking the black wire of the Reg/Rect and inserting in it into a different "input" port on the m-unit. The problem is that I procrastinated in undertaking the fix because I didn't want to un-do my neat custom-made wiring loom encased in heat shrink. In the interim, I merely set my 15A circuit breaker to "off" between start ups. When the CB is left on, the battery will drain. The "fix" was documented on my cell phone in a text to myself which got wiped clean. Cal, if you remember this, let me know please what it was - it was a very simple fix of just plugging the black wire into another port of the m-unit.
Thanks all. I hope these issues may give insight to someone in the future experiencing the same or similar.
Cheers.
Kevin
