Topic: Frozen Rocker Arms

[Hobbit]

I finally get my camshaft assembly together again and the damn thing seizes up.  I tried turning the kickstarter and it moved an inch but only force one of my rocker arms to scrape some metal off the cam lobe.  My guesses are the valve springs are too tight or I should adjust valve clearance on the rocker arms.  I know it's the cam assembly because it turned over fine until it was installed.

What do you guys think it could be and how should I go about fixing it without banging up the cam anymore? Jeeze, I hope it's permanently wrecked.
Any help would be great as I only 7 days to finish the bike before college.

[Hush]

I'm no expert on cams and valves, in fact I try to avoid them at all costs but you seem to have a solvable problem.
Have you tried slacking the rocker arms right back off?
If that works then at least you wont do any more damage to the lobes.
Is your cam chain tensioner slackened off, that would release some pressure, maybe the adjuster has popped out and becoming jammed is putting major strain on the cam chain.
What model bike (for the horde of people who will know more than I about this) what year?
If all else fails, remove the cam and check to see if you did something in error, better to retrace your steps than charge on and do more damage.

[TwoTired]

Seizes?   After running or before getting it going?  Or, just turning it over after assembly?  If the cam timing was off, the you may have bent valves when the piston cam up and hit it while still open, jamming the piston in place.

Not enough info to verify your "seize" diagnosis.

Cheers,

[OldSchool_IsCool]

Some engines, like the 550, you have to "hold up" the rocker arms when you replace the valve cover onto the head.  If you didn't do that, you may have bent some of the arms.

Check to see that all 8 tappets line up with their respective valves.

[Sporkfly]

Little more info would be useful.

Anyway, if it's a 550 as stated... Slack the tappets off all the way before putting it on, took me about 10 minutes to figure that one out when putting my engine back together.

Now if when you have your tappet cover off the rocker arms are actually stuck, that's something that can be fixed. Take it all apart, clean it up, lube it up, reassemble. The fact that you gouged up a cam lobe might be trouble though... Not sure how you managed that one, the rocker arms are smooth where they meet the cam

And a +1 on TwoTired for the bent valves.