Alright for anyone who cares or is following along..I finally got a little time to pull the engine out of the bike today. Was MUCH easier than I anticipated..now as long as I can find the parts and get it back together correctly I should be back on 2 wheels! Luckily the bottom end looks completely perfect..as far as I can see. Now shrapnel in the case and everything turns over by hand just fine. I can see a lot of the guts and they look real good. Hope there isn't anything else hiding once I finally find a head+cover....

Don't worry about it bud, follow the clymers and you'll be ok.
If you find anything you don't understand, we're standing by... almost.

88pagan wrote on 09/27/08 at 06:33:22:



I also posted this in your market place thread.

Assembly is pretty well straight forward and simple. The tricky part is getting the cam and gear in. But if you wrestle with it a few minutes it will go in. Just remember to have the piston at TDC and you line up the cam timing marks level with the top of the head. The orientation of the lobes will have the intake lobe just about to open the intake valve which is what you want because the starter will turn the engine bringing the piston down to suck in the fuel.

For quite a while I had it where both lobes were pointing down and didn't think anything about it until I installed Lancer's performance cam. I had all kinds of trouble until I actually looked at the timing marks. I had the cam severally retarded until I figured it out.

The timing marks are a scribed line that runs straight across the very front of the cam. Make sure those are line up parallel with the top of the head and you will be timed correctly as long as the piston is at TDC.

Actually, there were some obvious big chunks that I fished out. They pretty much almost fit the missing parts in the piston exactly. To be sure (hopefully) that I get every last pc, I've picked up a few gallons of oil and I'm hoping to somehow fill the case with a litte, pour it out of the right side whole...repeatedly while watching what comes out. After several times of this I should hopefully be ok right or anyone have any other ideas besides cracking the bottom end! I'm gonna hope that since I was able to find those big chunks that match pretty close that I'll be able to notice any other fragment coming out until it seems perfect. Opinions??

Ok so...if the consensus is that I split the case, I really don't want to do all of this rebuilding and leave out that vital part. So, is it really that easy? Hell, I've already made this far. Oh btw, I read a post about replacing the cam chain without removing the clutch basket a while back. I don't know if someone already said this, but I WAS able to wiggle the gear right out of there like someone had mentioned. Very easy. Mine is a 95 and had plenty of room. So back to splitting the case....  

To get the cam chain off of the FireLizard, I just had loosen the clutch basket enough to pull it forward just enough to wiggle the gear out. Didn't even have to pull the clutch basket nut all the way off.

Ok, soooo, I attempted to remove the clutch nut without using the special clutch holder tool. I DID get it off, but also broke one of the flanges off of it (the protruding part the bolts go into). So that just set me back a couple more days but the new piece should arrive tomorrow or wed. My question is, do I have to pay the $30 they want for the special tool or does anyone have any tricks to get that nut torqued correctly without it?? I guess it wouldn't hurt to just buy the tool but if all goes right, I won't have this thing this far torn down for a looooong time. Thanks folks