remember that valve spring retainer that got damaged by a tappet adjust screw that went loose?
looked like this:
as part of some winter work i decided to replace it. not sure if it was needed but makes me feel better.
i tried to do it with the head in the frame which needed a bit of improvisation: a wire spanner, 6mm bolt, tyre iron, piece of tubing and a rope all helped together to create a make-shift valve spring compressor.
here we go - all good again:
while the cover was off i also retarded the cam a couple of degrees.
when installing it i advanced it a tiny bit, about 1.5 degrees or so (give or take some measuring tolerances). because i wanted to make sure i got as much mid-range power as possible. but now, after seeing how much torque this engine config produces, it turned out to be unnecessary and i could reverse that precaution.
there was also a stripped thread on one of the bolts for the cam cover that i fixed with a helicoil.
so now we're almost ready for spring. although, i do want to revisit the clutch mod that i skipped last year.