Topic: Need Help identifying This Please

[katman]

Hey everyone. My friend is changing the oil in his 77K. He pulled the bottom cover and found this in the bottom of the pan. Bike runs fine and turns over smoothly. It looks like a piece of a cooling fin with the rounded edge. Any idea where this could have came from inside the engine

[PeWe]

Can it be this one?
I have forgotten why. Maybe a mistake when assemble the crank with chains, dropping it?

Bottom cases, one with broken one (yellow), on OK (green).
The broken one as I got the cases when buying them.

I heard from my friend I got it from that this is rather common.

[katman]

Yea, that looks like it. Thanks

[PeWe]

Maybe if rotating crank when cam chain is not attached around cam sprocket when cam is not mounted, chain down the case.
I guess this is my bet;D

[Don R]

 I'm sure we have seen this in the past. I believe it's an oil deflector, the engine won't miss it much.

[HondaMan]

A Honda rep once told me it was a "production assembly assistance feature".
I think the idea behind it was that it held the cam chain on the sprocket while the chain was hanging slack as the cylinders and head were being installed. I think this because, when I assemble engines where this is already missing, it is real easy to get the cam chain doubled over a ltooth under that sprocket, which causes you to have to rotate the crank back-and-forth to get it into a slack-enough position to mount the chain over the cam sprocket while inserting the cam. This can be really annoying after you have already positioned everything else, then have to drop the chain and sprocket off the cam (again) to assemble it...assembly techs don't like that sort of thing.