I was very positive last post, thinking I’d managed to bodge the stripped thread in the cylinder head with helicoil and metal paste. Not even. I left it overnight, but when I came to tighten the nut the post just span. I gave it another go, but no.
I went online to get that £30 cylinder head, but it was from an earlier model. The next best one was £70, with all the internals coming with it. I ordered that and a gasket. Then I thrashed the workshop manual, and it’s a good job I got the dearer one, apparently the cams are specific to the heads, you have to buy them as a unit.
Today I had to get up early to wait for a ‘phone call from the doctors’. They’ve doubled my dose of loony pills, yay! I was already a ton better, that should finish the job off. Then I had the guy coming around to buy the Bonnie at dinner time. That was a farce. Because he was an old guy his banking app stopped his instant payment as a potential scam. But didn’t say that that was what it was. After many attempts to get it to work he finally rang and had to jump through all the hoops to get them to clear it. He was grumpy when he got here, by the time he left he was jumping. It was funny. Job done. Money in the bank. Then I set to work on the VFR. There is so much donkey work to do just to get to the cylinder head. Tank, seat, airbox, carbs, radiator, fairings, downpipes, engine bolts, all had to come off. Lots of the little jobs were just fiddly and time consuming.
I’ve got to here:
Everything is off, I just have to set the cam position, undo a bunch of bolts, take out the cams, and lift the cylinder head off.
I was getting tired and it’s not a job to rush so I left it there and had another read of my workshop manual. That should be an hour’s work in the morning. Then spend a good while cleaning up the surface, pop the new gasket on and wait for my head. Damn ParcelForce! 48 hour delivery, received on Monday at 09.30, say they are delivering Thursday morning. How is that 48 hours? It’s such a pain to strip it far enough to get access that I’ve ordered a new set of plugs while it’s stripped. I might as well swap them. I really don’t want to take it apart again. I’ll do a leak down test on the valves of the new head, if no oil drips through I’ll pop it straight on. Really I should do the valve clearances while it’s in bits. Hmmm. I might do the rear valves tomorrow before I take the head off. I’ve just reminded myself by watching some videos. It’s not too terrible. I might as well.
Bugger. Just looking, I can do the checks but I may have to strip it down again to fit the shims. I can’t see a next day delivery. That is a proper downer. Nope. Frantic search and the soonest is a week. Ah well. I’ll do the checks, hopefully it’s all clear. Or I’ll be able to swap the ones from the head I’m removing. Meh.
That aside, it’s been a good day.
3 days later…
I got the cylinder head off. It was unexpectedly hard. There are two engine bolts that go through the frame to the cylinder head. It is so, so tight. I ended up angle grinding a millimeter off the posts to get the new head back in. So it was graft getting it out. Then I was worried about my parcel not arriving. The tracking said it was still in Coventry. It came on Thursday morning so I got the head back on yesterday. I swapped over the shims and buckets then worked out how to fit the cams. Mr Honda has made them foolproof, but I was testing the claim. “This won’t line up!” It was the exhaust cam I’d put in the inlet position. “Stupid arrows won’t line up with the cam followers up!” I’d put the cam on the wrong way around. And then there was the head not fitting into the frame. That took me ages. It’s cast alloy so you can’t just pound it or it will snap. So I was hitting it with a rubber mallet, taking it back out, trying again. hit it again. I just couldn’t get it in. I was trying to force the frame apart with one hand while fitting the head with the other. That went as well as can be expected. In the end I had to resort to the angle grinder. It meant that it took me all of yesterday just to get the head on, fit the cams and holders and put the top back on.
Then I was losing sleep worrying that the engine bolts wouldn’t line up. I don’t know what I could have done if they didn’t.
Today I finished it off. The engine bolts went straight in. I tried an internet trick to fit the carbs. Vaseline on the rubbers and the intakes, heat the rubbers up with a heat gun. They just popped in. I was amazed. I couldn’t believe it. I was checking and double checking to see if they’d gone in. They did. Just like that. It’s one of my most hated jobs on a VFR. The time and effort I’ve put into trying to get them back in their rubbers. Hitting them, levering them, sweating and risking damage just to try and get them to seat. Vaseline, heat gun, plop, job done. Amazing.
While I was at it I changed the plugs, oil and filter, and drained, flushed and refilled the radiator. That’s a year’s worth of service done.
Oh, another obstacle. The new head had four exhaust studs, but when I tried to take the nuts off the posts screwed out of the cylinder head. Not a problem, I soaked them in oil overnight then held one in a mole grip while I got an electric impact driver on the nut. It was so rusted on it snapped the bolt instead of undoing. Luckily I remembered I had some new studs somewhere. I found and fitted them.
I got it all back together and took it for a quick mile test run. No leaks, everything worked. Then, to stock up before Trump’s war stops all the petrol, I did a 5 mile ride to the petrol station. I gave it a quick blip of high revs and nothing exploded. I think I’m good.
I need to put some time aside to strip it again and do the valve timing. Ideally when I can have a week off the road so I can order the right size shims, so I don’t have to strip it twice more. That’s all that’s left to do on it.
I’m tired of doing my back in in the shed so tomorrow I’m resting. I’ll probably be working Sunday and Monday, so on Tuesday I’ll see about sorting the Harley out. If I can get that back up and running I can use that while the VFR is stripped. Sod it, I’ve just got a set of shims. I’ll probably never need most of them, but for £35 it’s worth not having to strip and rebuild the bike twice. It’s coming from China so it will probably be a few weeks. Assuming my bike doesn’t blow up first, I’ll do it then. Then the bike should be sorted for a long time to come. Huzzah!