Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rhino]

Rules:  This is not an attempt to disgruntle the masses, but certain things I am sure of.  I am sure I took no pictures too, so don't bug me.

1. The Zippers 575 cam for the 110 is a darn good investment, and has performance to prove it.
2. Never use a dealer who underpays their parts installers, or pays by the job....I mean mechanics...loosely.
3. Even if you are not as handy as you think, you can do a better job than a dealer in most cases.
4. Follow manufacturers instructions to the letter.
5. Bring bike to authorized dealer for warranty work only, never for anything requiring more than a screwdriver, although even that was a screw-up.
6. For any engine work, like performance anything, demand that you can watch or participate. If not, run for the hills, unless the INDIVIDUAL mechanic that will touch your bike is a true friend.
7. Spend a day or two reading the owners manuals, the maintenance manuals and the parts manuals, so you will know more than the mechanic when it comes to actually having work done.
8. Final analysis, do as much as you can by yourself, and then select from the known quantity of the ten best in the country for the hard stuff like flow bench work or porting etc.


So here is the story, actually the very very short story. And maybe some missed issues and maybe some timeline errors, but deal with it, you should get the idea.  Take bike to dealer. Have zippers cam, zippers pushrod installed.   Get bike back. Bike is noisy.  Performance is nowhere near what is expected.  Talk to dealer. Did you need the instructions? I have extra copies. No, we do this all the time, it's not a complicated job.  Talk to Zippers, Zippers says no way, this is a great cam for that application.

Bring back to dealer, dealer rides, Dealer says normal.  Suggest next time they check the pushrods, and those adjustments. Are you sure you don't need the specs?  Anyway I leave them on the lift just in case. You know, the how-to install cam and how to install pushrod stuff. Stuff that I would not be without, must be burned into the memery of these highly experienced fellows.   Talk to other experts, they say no way you can screw up pushrod adjustments, that is BASIC 101.  But I have them check them anyway, and they say it's fine.  A few miles after the second visit, oil on pants. Dealer cut pushrod gasket in half while reinstalling pushrod covers.   Bring bike back with Dealer trailer.  Dealer replaces o ring-gasket, requiring pushrod and rocker box removal..again..  Bike is still noisy.  Dealer says still normal.  Still slow, still noisy. 

Asked question for the third time: did you clearance the rocker boxes? They say yes.  I leave bike at dealer. Bike down for a few more days. Then got into a discussion about lifters, and how they work. Beginning to understand for sure. They're viewpoint anyway.

Get bike back, still slow, still noisy, and the noise is making me crazy. And I am making everyone else crazy. I insist this is wrong.  In the meantime I am riding but cant enjoy. Then Harry gets in my face. His bike is way faster. I am getting pretty upset, and have now run into a dead end with the dealer, and lost a lot of use while it sat over there.

Noise continues. I am going to shoot somebody if this is not resolved.  Bring bike back AGAIN, please check it out.  They say noise is normal. But, sounds like the compensator nut is loose.  OK, leave it for the day, they tighten it back up.  In the whole process, they have mixed the Syn back in with my expensive Amsoils.  Need to change it all out again.

Now I have a Harley guy, the independent type, take it for a ride.  Holly chit he says, there is something not right, and way way to much noise.  So, I ask, what is your opinion?  He says you are probably not hurting anything but it is a little ridiculus to have the noise be louder than the exhaust, don't you think?  Yes I said, I agree, but the dealer rode it a few times, and they insist it is normal.  He then used the stethoscope type anaylysis and says the same thing, the same words that Dan at Zippers said. "I'll bet dollars to donuts that you have a clearancing problem"..The rear cylinder is super loud. But no mention of pushrods were made, becasue that was 101 remember?  Instructions bah humbug.

Dealer ignores me now. And anyway with my lack of knowledge they would easily bully me and I wanted to not go through that embarrassment.  So.......

CONTINUED PAGE TWO

[Rhino]

In my shed, I break out the tools, and the manuals and have at it.  I remove the spark plugs, and as shown, find exact TDC. This is figured out, and thus blocked the rear wheel to make sure that puppy would not move. Slowly, and carefully.  Lift the tank, block it up a few inches, with the goal of the day to be able to remove the rocker box cover.  Hmmm. Six bolts, undoing them each just like the manual says.  Bolts are undun!.  I lift off the cover, and realize that this is not the thingy they were referring to. There is now the breather I am looking at, so slowly, I take it off.  (during this, I had each bolt on a paper showing exactly where it came from so as to make sure they would go back in the same place.).  And now I see the rocker arms.  Hmm. I then take off the pushrod tube clip, and actually look at the pushrods. Says to remove them before unbolting the rocker arm assembly, so I do that. But I make sure the thread was marked. I then collapse the rods all the way up, with the exact spot marked to put them back in afterwards. (I figured I didn't know anything at this point, so learning as I went was kind of interesting. I was liking this, but still pissed I am doing this in the first place.

Anyway, with the pushrods out and off to the side, I am now going to take out the rocker box.  I went this far, so timidly I had at this part.   4 bolts off, and voila, here comes that box that everyone is talking about.  Here's a good one.  After taking a quick look, what I am looking at I can't realy beleive.  This thing is ALL butchered up.  (Oh, I am only doing the rear at this point, I hope its the harder of the two).  And I am convinced that this is hitting all over the place, but it turned out the clearancing must have been done with a jack hammer. 

I needed to get two gaskets, so I take this thing with me to the dealer.  I lay it on the counter, and a few of the employeees pick it up.  They think I did this, becasue they looked at it and gave me the 'how did you screw this up' look.   When I said it was their handywork, they scurried away.

So, I had a chance to look at it very carefully, and discovered that it was rubbing on the far side, outside of the spring, and it was smooth and shiny, and so was the retaining cap on the spring, all along one side. So, I knew this had to be corrected.    I knew it, so I went to the shop dude, and without saying a word, handed it over and asked it he could please take a look and see where there was a clearance problem.    He looked, and said it was fine, plenty of clearance.  I quietly left, got my gaskets, and came back to the house and slowly, and carefully played with my dremel. taking care not to shave much, but did clean up all of those gouges.  Worked the area that was rubbing until smooth.   I figured it was good when I could run my fingers all around the clearanced part without getting bloody fingerling slices from what was there before.

Gave me chance now to kind of figure out where I was at for labor no cams..  Lets see 600+ for this install, 25 bucks for gaskets, plus downtime a few times to fix and fix again at the dealer.  And now my bike is in pieces.  I need some rest, best not keep doing this since it's after midnight.

Fresh the next AM, I start looking at everything and take a deep breath and go for it.  Slowly start the assembly processes.  Gasket check,and check the rocker box. Put it back on, pushrods in place loosely, breather etc.  Torque the bolts in order.  Wow, it is starting to look like I am going to succeed.

So now, I actually got the bike back to almost normal.  Now for the pushrods.  Hmmm, I am not so confidant. The dealer explained hydralic lifters..He said it don't matter, as long as you are in the middle somewhere of the .200 available you are good.  I figure it all out, let's see, 32 tpi give .0051 per flat, so 19-20 flats should put me right in the middle (oh, double checked TDC, and then extended pushrod to what is known as 0 lash, just at the point you feel the lifter and rocker arm touching, no pressure but just touching, that's zero lash.) So off I go, counting off 19 flats, and lock it down.  I did leave a little time for the lifter to bleed down from the spring pressure, so as not to bend anything.  I do both together, no big deal. I am conquering this!!

All back together, tank back on, etc,.  Off I go!  Man, it is a lot quieter, as a matter of fact, the rear is so quiet, now I hear the front clearly.  Sure nough, I am going to have to repeat this procedure.  Once around the block and home. But I am still not clear on the pushrod issues, remembering the dealer had told me the whole philosopy, I get out the Zippers instruction. 

As I am reading the ZIppers instructions on the Zippers Pro Tapered Pushrod Installation sheet, I am really confused now.   They did not say where to make the measurments from, like from TDC or what? And the sheet was saying to extend the rod out a total of 42 flats.  How can that be???  42 flats?  Each flat being .0051, why, thats .214!!!  The rod is only supposed to be set at 100 into lifter travel. So what's this? . chit now what.  Calling Zippers...anyone home??  SO, finally, I get a human on the phone and I want some hand holding. OK, it took a few hours to connect, but I was not doing a thing until I spoke to someone, becasue there instructions fly in the face of what the Dealer told me.  I need some clarification here.... CONTUNIED PAGE THREE

[Rhino]

John Kitz to the rescue.  Ron he says, we know what we did for a very good reason. I agree that if the MANUFACTURER says to do something, best to follow them. Yeh dealer, the experts and my horror story are getting resolution.   John took the time, and carefully explained a lot of things.  He said this was a very hot button subject on many boards.  But needless to say, I am going the ZIppers Way.

Back into the shed.  What I am now looking for is the BASE circle. On another post, I think gmr posted a diagram of that. It's the heel of the cam, the lowest point not on a lobe.  And John said the instructions are correct. They key word in the installation sheet, was:  After making sure you are on the base circle, and you can still just turn the pushrod, shorten it 4 flats and lock it.   4 flats?  'It's only 20 thousandths, not the 100 thousandths the common setting was.    To make this story really short now,  this is exactly what I did.  It would not have a valve to piston clearance problem since it is checked not relying on the lifter, but rather on the base, ANY cushion from there is ok. But am I running a solid lifter?, becasue that is awfully wrong compared to the .100 dealer says.  Nope.  John told me this, and I tend to really beleive him.  The metallugy in their proprietary pushrods need to be set at 20 thou when engine is cold.  At warmup, the whole engine expands, but his pushrods don' expand nealy as much due to the metals used.  Doesn't matter, I figured FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS> 


Hehe, I did both front and rear pushrod adjustments, took the time to do so.  Why you ask?  Becasue when I re installed the pushrods that the dealer did, remember I marked them?  Well, I did, and found out that they were off 14 flats from where it should have been.  This is no opinion. This is fact. 14 flats is 71 thousandths.  So, when my bike warmed up, those rods were extremely loose, and the valves had no way of working even close to proper.   Man, I am now pissed again.  Becasue my bud Harry went through this thing with the dealer, and he was not so lucky.  I do not know why he needed adjustables, but what happened to him could have happened to me. His rods were so loose, that one end of it actually came out of the ball socket and caught the edge, bringing him to a very fast stop when the valve hit it.  That's another story, from the same dealer. In my case, the clearancing was done wrong, AND the pushrods were done wrong.  I am praying the cam was done right. So now I have 4 adjusted pushrods, and still another adventure of clearancing the front.

But I needed to ride, and the first place I was going is to my Harley bud Brad's, to let him ride and listen after I did all this. He is the one who pointed all this out.  I took my time for the 3 miles over to his place, and warmed it up.

I re start it and he got out the stethosccope.  He said, night and day, noise all gone, but some in the front, as expected.  So, I asked him to take it for a ride.   

He comes back 25 minutes later grinnin.  He rode it earlier oin the week and had no real comments. I explained the pushrod thing and he heartily agreed. Follow instructions.   My bike now is so f&^kg fast, with low end torque that easily lifts the front wheel up in the air clickin into second, and almost does it in third.  All becasue of a simple bolt in cam.   

It is a brand new bike.

Something as simple as being able to read instructions, and take a little QC time to do a few other things right, would not have resulted in this mess outlined above.  This WHOLE cam job should have been done right in 5-6 hours and I would have been thrilled. But no, I think there is too much pressure being put on underpaid mechs at this particulare dealer to go as fast as possible.  It is pretty sad, but reality.

Kudos go out to Zippers and their product.   If you like light to light, this is it.  If you like 5th gear clicks on the highway, this is good too, but horsepower will ultimately win that one. But I am one happy Fk now.  And I know more than I needed to know about pushrods, but I am very pleased I did this. So now I can add this one on my resume, along with being the T-Max dude.

Whew.

You all have a nice day, sorry for this diatribe, but I hope it brings out the light.   Also, this is not intended to harm anyone, or diss them in any way intetionally. This dealer shall remain nameless, no point in even asking.  I hope if they read this, they will know who they are, and be able to correct these problems and do the right thing.  Many dealers are excellent. It is hard to find a good one I guess.  But time heals, and I hope to maintain a good relationship with any dealer I visit and do business with. 


Rhino(onceagainintherunningtosplatterajwithpiecesofburningrubberfrommyreartire)

[Smiler]

Good on you for sticking with it and getting it sorted.

[Unbalanced]

Ronnie,

Wow what a story....   You also forgot to mention that the right tools are needed so you don't mar up the nuts on the pushrods  hehe

ohh and I like the signature on page 3 of the diatribe, I sure hope AJ doesn't see it.   

What were you referring to when you said horsepower would win out, I don't understand this reference?  hehe

[hard10]

In my shed, I break out the tools, and the manuals and have at it.  I remove the spark plugs, and as shown, find exact TDC. This is figured out, and thus blocked the rear wheel to make sure that puppy would not move. Slowly, and carefully.  Lift the tank, block it up a few inches, with the goal of the day to be able to remove the rocker box cover.  Hmmm. Six bolts, undoing them each just like the manual says.  Bolts are undun!.  I lift off the cover, and realize that this is not the thingy they were referring to. There is now the breather I am looking at, so slowly, I take it off.  (during this, I had each bolt on a paper showing exactly where it came from so as to make sure they would go back in the same place.).  And now I see the rocker arms.  Hmm. I then take off the pushrod tube clip, and actually look at the pushrods. Says to remove them before unbolting the rocker arm assembly, so I do that. But I make sure the thread was marked. I then collapse the rods all the way up, with the exact spot marked to put them back in afterwards. (I figured I didn't know anything at this point, so learning as I went was kind of interesting. I was liking this, but still pissed I am doing this in the first place.

Anyway, with the pushrods out and off to the side, I am now going to take out the rocker box.  I went this far, so timidly I had at this part.   4 bolts off, and voila, here comes that box that everyone is talking about.  Here's a good one.  After taking a quick look, what I am looking at I can't realy beleive.  This thing is ALL butchered up.  (Oh, I am only doing the rear at this point, I hope its the harder of the two).  And I am convinced that this is hitting all over the place, but it turned out the clearancing must have been done with a jack hammer. 

I needed to get two gaskets, so I take this thing with me to the dealer.  I lay it on the counter, and a few of the employeees pick it up.  They think I did this, becasue they looked at it and gave me the 'how did you screw this up' look.   When I said it was their handywork, they scurried away.

So, I had a chance to look at it very carefully, and discovered that it was rubbing on the far side, outside of the spring, and it was smooth and shiny, and so was the retaining cap on the spring, all along one side. So, I knew this had to be corrected.    I knew it, so I went to the shop dude, and without saying a word, handed it over and asked it he could please take a look and see where there was a clearance problem.    He looked, and said it was fine, plenty of clearance.  I quietly left, got my gaskets, and came back to the house and slowly, and carefully played with my dremel. taking care not to shave much, but did clean up all of those gouges.  Worked the area that was rubbing until smooth.   I figured it was good when I could run my fingers all around the clearanced part without getting bloody fingerling slices from what was there before.

Gave me chance now to kind of figure out where I was at for labor no cams..  Lets see 600+ for this install, 25 bucks for gaskets, plus downtime a few times to fix and fix again at the dealer.  And now my bike is in pieces.  I need some rest, best not keep doing this since it's after midnight.

Fresh the next AM, I start looking at everything and take a deep breath and go for it.  Slowly start the assembly processes.  Gasket check,and check the rocker box. Put it back on, pushrods in place loosely, breather etc.  Torque the bolts in order.  Wow, it is starting to look like I am going to succeed.

So now, I actually got the bike back to almost normal.  Now for the pushrods.  Hmmm, I am not so confidant. The dealer explained hydralic lifters..He said it don't matter, as long as you are in the middle somewhere of the .200 available you are good.  I figure it all out, let's see, 32 tpi give .0051 per flat, so 19-20 flats should put me right in the middle (oh, double checked TDC, and then extended pushrod to what is known as 0 lash, just at the point you feel the lifter and rocker arm touching, no pressure but just touching, that's zero lash.) So off I go, counting off 19 flats, and lock it down.  I did leave a little time for the lifter to bleed down from the spring pressure, so as not to bend anything.  I do both together, no big deal. I am conquering this!!

All back together, tank back on, etc,.  Off I go!  Man, it is a lot quieter, as a matter of fact, the rear is so quiet, now I hear the front clearly.  Sure nough, I am going to have to repeat this procedure.  Once around the block and home. But I am still not clear on the pushrod issues, remembering the dealer had told me the whole philosopy, I get out the Zippers instruction. 

As I am reading the ZIppers instructions on the Zippers Pro Tapered Pushrod Installation sheet, I am really confused now.   They did not say where to make the measurments from, like from TDC or what? And the sheet was saying to extend the rod out a total of 42 flats.  How can that be???  42 flats?  Each flat being .0051, why, thats .214!!!  The rod is only supposed to be set at 100 into lifter travel. So what's this? . chit now what.  Calling Zippers...anyone home??  SO, finally, I get a human on the phone and I want some hand holding. OK, it took a few hours to connect, but I was not doing a thing until I spoke to someone, becasue there instructions fly in the face of what the Dealer told me.  I need some clarification here.... CONTUNIED PAGE THREE

I just had to: 

[Rhino]

Yes, KUdos to Harry for having the right tools....and horsepower....howz that?   But I am still faster now off the line to the next light. Yes Harry, you win over 120mph. Fine. I can deal with that.

And BTW, I'll check back tommorrow to see how much damage I did today, my fingers are a little tender and I have to save some skin for... oh never mind.

Rhino(beingquietnow)

[Chief]

Can someone please merge these three threads into one? Good material and should all be in one thread.

Thanks.

[Rhino]

Yeh yeh... see caveat on PAGE ONE.

Rhin(tootired)

[Rhino]

It is too long. I think admin can do it. A lot of words just came ripping off my fingers. I hit the write limiter.

[Unbalanced]

Ronnie Ronnie Ronnie ye bendeth the truth a wee bit there.... but we can revisit that after you get the front rocker box clearanced.    

[hard10]

It is too long. I think admin can do it. A lot of words just came ripping off my fingers. I hit the write limiter.

OK, when can I schedule an appointment for you to do the cams & T-Max?

AJ(soontobeneedingatoothpicktogetrhinosrubberoutofmygrinningsmile)

[Fired00d]

Can someone please merge these three threads into one? Good material and should all be in one thread.

Thanks.

That better.

 
Ride Safe,
Fired00d
 

[Boatman]

Nice write up Rhino.  At least now you know it was done right.  Too bad you had to do it though.  Good job.  This is not brain surgery for sure, but you still have to know what you're doing.   

[Serkcus]

Now I'm confused, I am taking mine in Fri to have a look at the clearance issue. Is this a simple remove the rocker cover, checking for interference with the rocker case , removing some material if touching and closing it up? Or do I need to worry that the tech will have to do all of this above described procedure ? If so, it's getting scarier by the minute, I don"t think that they would be capable!