Okay, first off, I'd like to say thanks to you guys. Becasue of all the advice I read here, I felt confident enough yesterday to do the whole 600-mile cylinder head nut re-torquing process yesterday. Everything (almost) went great; no stripped or busted bolts, and I sealed the plug cap and got all the right bolts back in the right holes. I had only 2 problems:

1) Being fussy about getting the piston at TDCC, I stuck a screwdriver in the spark plug hole to see when the piston was at the top of the compression stroke. When the piston was coming up, the screwdriver jammed in the hole briefly (I think it was the angle between the piston and the plug hole). Did I just ruin my cylinder walls with that stupid screwdriver? It was jammed just for a second, and I wasn't cranking it hard clockwise, but...geez, I'm an idiot- why didn't I just use a pencil?

2) How much travel should be in the automatic decompression lever (not the cable, but the lever assembly that goes into the head and actuates the exhaust valve)? I ask because it seems to have much less travel than before I pulled the head. Is there anything in the head cover that you have to watch out for lever-wise before you put it back on? The lever barely moves, maybe 1 inch of travel...is that normal? The cable's also got a bit of slack. What could cause all this? If I want to check the lever out, can I pull it out with the head cover on, or do I have to yank the head off again to get at it?

Incidentally, the bike starts right up (even easier than before) and seems to run great- I put in a 152.5 jet. Still, now I'm paranoid that I've scored the cylinder AND messed up the decompression lever somehow.

Don't take the head off again, as been said you cant do much about it IF you scored the cylinder.

As for the decompression solenoid. There should be a 3 to 5 mm play, measured when piston is at TDC (Top Dead Center). Same applies when you adjust the valves play. In TDC.

Look in the Technical section for more info and pictures.

Greez
Kropatchek

Greg, I shoulda trusted the TDC mark (I was using it as well) but I wanted to be "sure" I was at TDC and I just didn't trust myself that I was doing everything right. I mean, the Clymer manual itself gets the process wrong when it says to rotate the shaft clockwise instead of counter-clockwise. Worrisome!

I'd heard of others using a screwdriver or long pencil in the spark plug hole to gauge TDC, so I thought I'd try to combine that trick with the mark, to be doubly sure. Next time, I'll just trust the TDC mark, as you said.

As for the decompression lever, thanks for the replies guys, but I'm not talking about the 3-5mm of free play in the cable itself- I'm talking about the lever that the cable pulls on. The lever <seems> to have much less range-of-travel than before I pulled the head. Could it be hanging up on something inside the head? The lever itself seems to move only about an inch or so. Anybody out there have access to the lever and want to check out roughly how much range of motion their lever has? Of course, you'd have to disconnect the cable first...

Don't fix it till it is broke, you probably just got the screwdriver askew in the sparkplug hole and scratched the top of the piston. Take it out and ride it, these engines seem pretty much bullet proof except for running them out of oil.