Topic: Is there enough oil getting to my tappets?

[Paganica]

76 cb550... I have heard when removing tappet covers and running the motor that oil should be "gushing" out of the tappet covers. I don't know that mine is "gushing" like it should. I changed the oil and filter recently and the oil level is where it should be.

I get a tappet like noise under acceleration (none at idle) and I just replaced the rocker cover, rockers, and cam shaft after dealing with the same issue before the swap. The original rockers were toast and looked burned. I blew air in the oil plug galley when the valve cover was off and got the oil level to rise out of the cam shaft oil holes so I thought I maybe ok but now I'm not so sure.

I've got some other sounds I'm working out too as you can probably hear in the idle 

[Redline it]

on the 400 designed head (looks similar) honda used a snap in tube (2) from both sides of the cam with oil that shoots straight onto the lobes. the cam sets in a valley of high pressure circulation. After seeing it and what it does for high rev long life, is when it becomes crystal clear to use the right oil and change it often.

[Bodi]

I don't think there's any "high pressure lubrication" to the valvegear. Pressurized oil from the main gallery passes up through two small orifice restrictors under the barrel section and the low pressure oil from them goes up through the barrels to to the head and filsl a sort of reservoir the cam spins in, splashing oil around a bit. There may passages that carry oil to the cam bearings but I don't have a 550 head around to examine - but the splashing from the cam lobes should get everything wet.
Oil should not be splashing out of the tappet covers but you should see oil dripping around if you look in. The video is too far too see anything like that.
The restrictor orifices can get plugged with crud, particularly if the oil filter got clogged and the bypass opened letting junk through. If your old cam looked like it had oil starvation, I would want to confirm that both sides are getting sufficient oil flow.

[Paganica]

Well that helps put my mind at ease. It's a little bitter sweet because it probably means the PO ran the bike with the wrong oil or low oil level long enough to burn up some of the tappets. I changed the filter and put in some 10w-40 and it seems like there is a decent amount of oil getting to the top end. The search for the knocking continues...

[seanbarney41]

Paganica, I have warned cb750 owners a few times before to check inside  the tappet covers with the engine running, as I have seen damaged valvetrains a couple different times when there was oil present but it did not splash out.  I have no experience on this with anything other than cb750's.  I do not know what you should be seeing in a 550 or other.  Maybe pm some good running 550 owners and ask them to do a little experiment?

[RAFster122s]

FunJimmy and bwaller and Mooshie and Steve0 have 550s