[eviltwin]

part of a valve feeler gauge broke off
and fell into my vavle area when i was
adjusting the valve clearance.

how screwed am i?

 

[mikeo]

You should be able to fish around with a magnet and find it unless its jammed in some crevice or other in which case you have to try to find it visually and then get it out with needle nose pliers or a roach clip or something like that.

Mike O.

 

[eviltwin]

yeah, the damn thing isn't magnetic.
I tried that already.
i can't even see where it is.
it fell towards the front of the bike.

i hope i don't have to take the whole engine apart.

 

[joe c]

what kind of motor is it?



jc

"tex, if your bikes a cheater, its not a very good one"

 

[eviltwin]

vtwin cl360 honda
1975

 

[jbranson]

Which valves were you adjusting? If it was the exhaust it should be right down by the bottom of the spring where the oil gathers...how big a piece?

It's tempered Stainless Steel...so it probably would be best to get it out of there...although...a good chance it wouldn't hurt anything.

JohnnyB



Edited by - jbranson on Apr 29 2007 11:22:40 PM

 

[joe c]

you could pull the cam cover and see rightin.im with johnny. id be real tempted to just leave it!




jc

"tex, if your bikes a cheater, its not a very good one"

 

[Geeto67]

since when is a cl360 honda a v-twin?

 

[joe c]

i have no idea what youre talking about gheet, but if he pulls the cam box cover, he can see the followers, cam, springs, etc. it should make getting out the broken part alot easier.

jc

"tex, if your bikes a cheater, its not a very good one"

 

[Geeto67]

quote:
i have no idea what youre talking about gheet, but if he pulls the cam box cover, he can see the followers, cam, springs, etc. it should make getting out the broken part alot easier.

jc

"tex, if your bikes a cheater, its not a very good one"

When you ask him what kind of motor he has above he responds:

quote: vtwin cl360 honda
1975

I really didn't have anything to add to this other than +1 on pulling the cam box cover and being a smartass aboutthe 360 being a PARALLEL twin.

I suppose I can has how big? a piece and would it possibly fit in the oil drainback? If it can and did fall in there you can be pretty humped in the sense that you would then have to squirt some oil to push it to the bottom of the pan and then drop the pan to get it out.

 

[eviltwin]

yeah.. not a vtwin.. i don't know what i was thinking.

it was a small little piece
(.002 heighth) a little less than a centimeter in length
and half that in width. I was working on the top left valve
and just putting the feeler under testing for drag and
it tore off the cheap tool and fell forward.
problem is, if i take the cam covers off
do i have to replace all my gaskets.

yeah I am halfway tempted to leave it in, but
afraid of engine damage.
i be more upset about screwing up my engine than
having to take it apart and not screwing it up.

well, i guess the recommended plan of action
is to take off the cam cover, look for the piece of metal,
if i can't find it... squirt oil down the valve and hope
it pushes the metal into the drain pan..
and if it still isn't there... just forget about it??

 

[Anythingillegal]

Sounds like you need to pay some one to work on your bike!


If you build it they will ride - ill.

 

[eviltwin]

quote:
Sounds like you need to pay some one to work on your bike!

why, because you believe i am incapable of learning how to work on my on bike?
we can't all be custom mechanics, but its my bike and i am not taking it in. i can do everything on that bike, it just takes some practice and learning. so thanks for the suggestion, but no thanks.
besides the fact that its wicked expensive, it defeats the point of motorcycle ownership (as far as my beliefs are concerned) and cafeing in general.
plus, it defeats the point of this section to come in and tell me i cant work on my own bike, and i should pay to take it in to someone.
-brent

 

[krapfever]

If you do have to replace the rocker box gasket, an old gearhead trick involves installing the new gasket with plain old engine grease (not RTV). This saves the gaskets but more importantly it eliminates the risk of extra RTV getting squeezed into the engine cavity and oil passages. I would only recommend this for "outer" case gaskets (i.e. stator cover, clutch cover, etc).

I reassembled my 350 in this way and she hasn't leaked a drop in 5 years.

Either way, you don't need much RTV to get the job done. I don't know if you've rebuilt a bike engine before but a common "first timer" mistake is to overuse RTV when installing gaskets. A plugged oil passage will ruin your engine in a hurry.

Anybody else tried the grease trick?



Honda go sideways!

 

[krapfever]

By the way, get that hunk of metal out of there.


Sucks, but, what're ya gonna do?

Honda go sideways!

 

[jbranson]

It's been my experience that most things lost in that area end up around the base of the valve spring.
I have a really strong little cobalt magnet I use....quite often various alloys of Stainless will stick to it...problem is there is so much steel in that area that it sticks to all that first.

As a last ditch effort....clean out your shop vac well, duck tape a small hose to the end of the big hose...fish around in there with that and see if you can pick it up....not much room though. It should be very close to the valve spring. Assuming it didn't pop out from between the rocker and the valve stem and go flying.
JohnnyB

 

[Geeto67]

quote:
yeah.. not a vtwin.. i don't know what i was thinking.

it was a small little piece
(.002 heighth) a little less than a centimeter in length
and half that in width. I was working on the top left valve
and just putting the feeler under testing for drag and
it tore off the cheap tool and fell forward.
problem is, if i take the cam covers off
do i have to replace all my gaskets.

yeah I am halfway tempted to leave it in, but
afraid of engine damage.
i be more upset about screwing up my engine than
having to take it apart and not screwing it up.

well, i guess the recommended plan of action
is to take off the cam cover, look for the piece of metal,
if i can't find it... squirt oil down the valve and hope
it pushes the metal into the drain pan..
and if it still isn't there... just forget about it??

If your gaskets are old then it is chepa insurance to replace them anyway. If you just did them recently then you should be able to pull them apart without damaging them and maybe sneak it through.

As an added safety measure, not really related to your problem, maybe a magnetic drain plug might not be such a bad idea. If this piece broke off ther has to be some other little shards in there swimming around. Most speed shops carry magnetic drain plugs in standard and metric sizes, take yours an match it up.

A piece of dirt (not metal) smaller than what you described caused rod bearing failuer in my father's 350 chevy engine, the power of crap in your engine can be amazing.

and never mind people telling you to get someone else to work on your stuff...it never ceases to amaze me the weird stuff that happens to people working on bikes. I never would have imagined this scenario.

 

[joe c]

oh yeah, it sounds like that valve was also a little on tight side, be sure to loosen that sucker a bit!

if you pull the cam box cover, you only need to replace that gasket. and there is little to no pressure up there, and the only way alot of oil should get up there is if your bike is upside down. just dont rip the gasket up too badly and reassemble it. be sure to retorque it properly too. youll have to probably pull alot of misc crap. tank, maybe coils, top engine mount. but nothing difficult. and work on your own shit. the last thing a bike shop wants is someone who wants thier bearing greased, or swing arm adjusted. half of owning a motorcycle is working on it. do it, have fun, and remember its about learning something new. if if you screw something up in the process.

jc

"tex, if your bikes a cheater, its not a very good one"

 

[eviltwin]

cool, thanks for all the advice.
i will be working on this all week.
hopefully i can get that sucker out.

-brent

 

[mikeo]

I just went out and looked at a 360 engine and the best way to get it out is to pull the rocker cover. If it is still there it could save you a lot of work. With that engine it is very easy for a piece of metal like that to get down to the crankcase. The cam chain tensioner is on the front and there is a lot of room for a piece like that to fall down. Once it is there there is a pretty good chance it can get sucked up in the transmission gears and get chewed into smaller pieces. Smaller pieces can be a problem. The oil is agitated enough that a piece could easily get into a transmission shaft ball bearing and that would end that particular bearings usefulness as a bearing. Generally speaking I don't think it would get into the engine oil system itself. Even if a small piece did manage to get by he pickup screen it would most likely get trapped by the centrifugal "filter". Its a pretty easy thing to pull the rocker cover and avoid later having to pull the engine and split the cases to replace a transmission bearing.

Mike O.