Had a pucker moment last night, running about 50-55 down a city street when I get this sharp pop that is both impact sound and sharp stumble sensation from the engine.  Started slowing down and got another one.  Limped home with visions of cam chain tensioner spitting springs into main gears running through my head.

Got up this morning and drained oil, put it up on the lift and started the exploration.


up on lift, ready to yank the pipe.


5 bolts to take off the exhaust system.


bent open the tab on the clutch cable.


Note location of the three bolts that have washers and "o"rings



17mm extension on plunger at 13,690 miles.  No sign of flexing or kinking or dropping the spring.  I got off lucky ....

I fished around inside the sump with a pickup magnet looking for any bits of metal of any kind and came up empty.  I pulled the belt cover and checked the belt and the sprocket teeth for any signs of having eateSome have even tilted the engine in the frame to make getting some parts off easier if you leave the tank on --- but I say it is a lot simpler to take the tank completely off and get it out of the way totally so you can SEE everything and get to everything easier.n a rock or such -- nothing.

Tomorrow I pull the tank and start pulling the head cover to see what is going on up there.

Let's see, today is a short day because I have to go to work.  Please excuse the use of Serenity's old engine (the one I keep sitting on my desk) for some of the pictures as my black painted cases make for some very vague shots with black on black on black and all.

First, someone PM'd me asking about the stand I use.



It comes from Harbor Freight, it is their most expensive motorcycle stand and it works pretty well.  Note that I tie the cycle down to the stand from both directions as the stand allows you to wheel the bike around on its little wheels fairly freely.  The bike wants to tip over while you do this, so you rope it down tightly.  A technique for getting "tight" is to let the stand down an inch, rope it off then jack the stand back up that last inch -- nice tight ropes then.

Let's talk about fishing inside your rabbit holes with a magnetic pick up for a little bit.  You need to do this every time you have the chance as you are looking for bits of transmission dog edges and other pieces of hard steel that are generated by your motor.   Mine came up squeaky clean on this check, so I went and took some pics of Serenity's old motor since you could see what was going on.







As you can see, there is some dog edges and other transmission debris present inside most of our motors.  The stuff lives in the bottom of the sump, just kicking around in the oil unless you make the effort to get it out when you have the opportunity.

Remember to check you oil pump drive gear for potential disengagement due to previous owner clutch flange orientation error.  You do this by trying to finger your oil pump gear forward and out of engagement with the clutch gear.  



If you can disengage the oil pump gear you need to take the clutch off and check the orientation of the mounting spacer flange and check for the absence of the little roller that keys the drive gear in place.





Lastly, always remember to block off your rabbit holes with a paper towel to keep circlips and locator pins from diving down them durn rabbit holes when you least expect it.

to show a bit more what OF is talking about.  With regards to the tank and removal.

these are on the underside of the tank, both sides.(at least on my 07)


and these rubber stopper looking things on either side of the frame secure the tank in those holders, along with the rear bolts.


No disrespect on the added pics OF.  I just had my tank off and wanted to show a bit more.

Let's start this next day of teardown playtime by giving hommage to the list instructions given by past members.  You are getting ready to get internal, so go read this old post as part of your getting ready to bust it open.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1099227295/0

Now, let's morn together the passing of all the pictures that were at one time part of this old thread.  They are gone now, along with all the good information they once possessed.  I will re-host the pictures that I re-use in this thread so they will be renewed and they will last as long as Hunt101 does -- but when Hunt101 kicks me off for old age this Tech thread will get pic denuded just like all its predecessors did.  But hey, by then hopefully you will have some new list member busy snapping pics and writing new tech threads that are even better.

==============

Part of getting ready means printing out the pics at the bottom of this post.  You have to do some gyrations do do this because Microsoft's XP, Vista and System 7 are so darn helpful with the pictures they won't allow you to print net stuff that isn't all automatically resized by their default systems software.  

So follow the instructions and print out the bolt map, then tape it to a junk box top and cut some "X" patterns in the bolt holes so you can poke each bolt through its picture to save it and its washer in a nice logical fashion.  

Note the L65 and L70 have colored circles around them.  This is to remind you that you have to have them sitting in place when you put the head cover back on or you are soooooo screwed that you have to take it off and do all it over again.  Keep your washers with the screws and do not mix up any washer types/sizes.

=============

OK, to get full size printables of these images you need to download the images to your desktop by clicking on them to look at them and then right clicking on the image that you see and selecting "Save image as" out of the dialog box and then telling it to save it to your desktop.  Do this for both of the images given below.

Then go here and download Irfanview (a freeware that does NOT use the infamous Microsoft Fax and Picture Viewer which is what has screwed up all your picture sizes for you all these years) and then print the images at full size using the top item (Original Size from image DPI) on the Irfanview print menu.  

http://download.cnet.com/IrfanView/3000-2192_4-10021962.html

All this just to get some full sized printed images to use when working on your bike --  (ain't Microsoft fun?)

=============

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/HeadPattern01web1.jpg

This image is a direct link to a full size printable that was originally posted by Savage Greg.  

While you are busy getting ready, print out this item that was originally provided by Digger -- they are retorque order maps of the head cover that might be useful to you.

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/combo_torque_map.jpg


================

Now that you have your 2 pieces of paper in hand, let's go to work!

It's a new day off, time to hit the garage for a few hours of fun !!

Let's see, we had it open and it was time to clean it up, pull the plug and retorque the head.  Then we will pull the cam for change out.



So, pop the plug out (mine came out quite easily with NO sealer on it whatsoever -- even Clymers says put sealer on it now-a-days.  Suzuki still hasn't gotten the word yet.



Please, take some care not to damage your aluminum gasket surface !!



Now let's talk about re-torquing the head for a bit.   There is a long term disagreement about the best way to do it, so read up a bit using search and make up your own mind as to which method is best.

Me, I unscrewed each fastener in turn, lubed the nut and the flat with neverseize and re-installed the nut and brought it back up to torque.  Each pull up to 21-24 foot pounds was butter soft and easy, with no grabbing and jerking of the fastener whatsoever.  

Theory is that the remaining 3 studs hold everything down tight and good while you service the one (1) nut that you just undid.  I do not hold with taking them all four loose at the same time -- you will break seal on the head gasket, base gasket, etc. etc. if you take them all loose at the same time.

Yes, there is some stress taking one (1) loose, but less stress than taking all 4 loose by far.  YOU MUST LUBE OR OIL THE THREADS OR YOU DO NOT GET AN ACCURATE TORQUE READING AT ALL -- all you get is twisting of the stud and jerky erratic movements from the fastener rubbing on the copper washers.

Now you have everything pulled up evenly to the 24 max foot pounds, give it a half hour and go back round again.  Hey, 20 was start of movement and it ramped back up to 24 within a quarter turn on each of the 4 studs.  Well, stop and re torque the two upside down nuts under the head and the 2 at the base gasket for the jug, give it another half hour and check them again.

Same story, 20 to start and it ramps right back up to 24 within an eighth to a quarter of a turn.  All you are doing after the first two re-torques is stretching the stud some more, so give it one more pull up and quit.  

Time to clean the hole up with some brake cleaner for the new plug.  Juice it up with some black gasket maker and push that new plug home with your thumb !!



Note the displaced gasket maker evenly distributed around the plug.

Now, let's talk about gasket maker stuff in general.  First, the stuff is constantly evolving and improving, so old arguments you read about brand X vs brand y likely don't even apply any more.  My castings are painted black, so I bought 500 degree rated high temperature black Permatex gasket maker -- this stuff does not require air dry time so you can bolt it right up after applying it.  

(Hey, I told you the stuff is constantly getting better and better since the last time you bought some.)

You want your stuff to be able to be bolted up wet, as that is what you MUST do on the cover -- you do not want to have to let it dry for 15 minutes and make a stiff build up as that would jack your cam bearing clearance out through the roof and that is NOT a good thing.  You want to be able to bolt it up wet and squish it out to almost nothing thickness and that is what the current version of Permatex Ultra Black Hi-Temp will allow you to do.

Next, Advanced Auto sells a half ounce tiny tube of the stuff for $2.29 -- unless you have enough planned to use a big tube up just buy a little tube.  Big tubes, all I have ever seen is stiffened up big tubes that I toss away after a few years.  Buy a little tube -- it is enough and the big tubes cost $8.95 more (and it will all be wasted anyway).

Periodically, put your thumb back on top of that new style rubber plug and check that it hasn't jacked itself up out of the hole.  This has been reported by other list members as happening to them, so until your sealer sets up good keep a check that it doesn't happen to you.

==============

Take a break and read up on cam pulling in Clymers.  You got to keep track of some orientation stuff and put a safety wire on your cam chain.  Also, get some white out and put a white out mark on the cam chain where it sits on top of the cam sprocket right now.

Today was a full day, but not a whole lot seems to have been accomplished.   Part of this was the new Web Stage 2 cam, I think this might be the first one ever installed and written up so I did all the qualification checks Web specified to "qualify" the cam.

Web Cam has a whole sheet of "owner responsible" clearance checks and function checks that basically say "We made what you said you wanted, but we take no responsibility for it causing your springs to go solid & break,  or your valves to hit each other inside the combustion chamber or for your screw adjustments to whack the inside of your covers, etc. etc."

At least they take the effort to list ALL the ways a high lift cam can mess you up and then suggest ways for you to check it all out before turning the engine on.

So, I put the cam in, assembled the engine top end completely (with valve clearances set) with run in lubricant but without any gasket sealer, rotated it through and did all the Web specified clearance checks, tore it back down, cleaned it up, gasket sealed it, put it back together (with assembly lube) torqued it and called it a night while the gasket sealer sets up good.





This was my check pics for the new cam as installed -- making sure all the orientations were the same and all alignments came out correctly.

Putting the cam in is the same juggling act as Step 3 in the cam disassembly from yesterday except in reverse.  It is easy to mis-index the sprocket by 1 tooth, but then the horizontal lines are off and that clues you which way to step the chain on the sprocket to fix it.  Do take the time to go through a few 4 cycle checks and hit top dead center several times, index it good and check everything out good.  

IF THAT CAM ISN'T RIGHT YOU WILL DO A FULL TEAR DOWN TO FIX IT -- be anal and do it several times to be sure.  

Also, I put locktite on the two bolts that are retained by the bent half moon thingie -- belt and suspenders for a part that one list member had fail due to possible under torque condition.   The spec'd torque is only a mild 10-11.5 foot pounds, so some locktite is good insurance that the fasteners won't vibrate free at some later date.



Ever seen a brass feeler gage before?  That .010" thick gage goes inside your valve spring sets to check to see if they are going solid under the new cam's higher lift.



You bend it up into a snake so you can get it inside the raised spring, then you cycle it down with the cam into full compression and see if you can pull it out.  If you did go solid you wouldn't be able to pull it out and the soft brass would take a crush impression from the spring coils pinching it.  

To the best of my ability, we don't seem to have a coil binding issue with this new cam.  It doesn't smack the valves against the piston top,  wang them against each other in cycling, nor does it beat up the covers.  I will report any durability issues that arise over time, but right now I think the engine is good to go for break in.



Here is the cover with assembly lube on the pads and everything clean and ready to apply the gasket maker to it.  Assembly lube comes in two basic types, with moly and graohite and without.  Your clutch prefers assembly lube without moly and graphite as it gets in the oil system and winds up in the clutch where it can result in slippage.  

A simple lithium based wheel grease out of your pump grease gun would actually do the job (which is to support friction free running until the oil pump moves oil up there through the empty passages).



Here is the head with the second installation of run in lube all ready to apply the gasket maker to it.

You set everything out and easy to hand, INCLUDING THE TWO SCREWS (L65 and L70) THAT HAVE TO BE IN PLACE WHEN THE HEAD COVER GOES BACK ON.  

Then you clean your hands take a deep breath.  15 minute clock starts now., or

And then you goop the cover (including the large end seal recess since we are reusing the old end seal) set the curvy "O" ring in place in the recess with a little gasket maker on the edges -- then you goop the head surfaces, goop the end seal recess, pick up the end seal and lightly goop the outer surface and then put it in place in the head recess.

Stop and clean your hands again, quickly.  Then put the two fasteners (L65 and L70) in place in the head and then tilt the head up and install it from the left side of the motor while not letting your gooped surfaces touch anything.  Remember that the L65 bolt head goes down a level inside the cylinder fins (it has a mounting slot that you see on top)  and watch out for the little formed "O" ring around the hollow locator dowel getting out of its recess.  Settle the head cover down over the guts and begin dropping in the bolts.



Turn all the bolts to touch when you put them in then do the first pull up at 60 inch pounds following the order of the pull up chart listed below (you have a printed copy of it, right?).

FROM THIS POINT ON BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO MOVE THE CLUTCH BASKET, THE ALTERNATOR NUT OR THE CAM OR THE ENGINE IN ANY FASHION.  YOU DO NOT WANT TO SMEAR SOFT SEALER ACROSS THE BEARING JOURNALS



Then go for 80 inch pounds on the next round, then up it to 100 inch pounds for the third round.  Give it 15 minutes and go around again and you will find some of the longer fasteners pull up more and the one in the middle pulls up quite a bit more (you got oozing going on).

Give it another 15 minutes and go around again -- not much should move this time.  Give it 30 minutes and go around again -- nothing should move except maybe the center and 1-2 of the longer fasteners.

Go again in an hour and nothing should move -- you are done for tonight.  

The cover needs 24 hours to fully cure before rotating the cam as YOU DO NOT WANT TO SMEAR SOFT SEALER ACROSS THE BEARING JOURNALS -- you want it to set up totally solid so it breaks free leaving just a little lump of gelled gasket maker in the journal to cam clearance which then slowly gets worn away as the cam oscillates around in the clearance in the oil film while running.  

Your assembly lube will make sure the goo lump won't stick to the cam steel after it sets up good, but you have to take care not to move anything while the gasket maker is wet and gooey or you could smear it across the shaft and the journals and get some goo contaminated aluminum journals which would then pick up wear trash and could then lead to journal galling and failure.



Put a cover over it and put it to bed for the night.  You can break it free in the morning.  

Go eat dinner, watch a show with your wife and then go upstairs to your mini lathe and knock out a new clutch push rod that is 1mm longer than the stock push rod -- and while you are there, shorten the stock rod by 1mm just so you can finally answer the question "which way does it go" for once and for all.  

(I still reserve the right to not know and to be wrong occasionally -- keeps me human   )

Hindsight Section:

Any time you do a major job you have things you wished you had done differently.  So here they are as they come up to my mind.

1)  Cleaning up the spark plug area for embedded sand grit.  I originally used engine cleaner and then had to go back after it with brake cleaner later on.  Brake cleaner is acetone in a spray can and it can cut the baked on oil/sand crap MUCH FASTER & better than the engine cleaner did.  

I think I did the order of the things backwards, I should have started with the brake cleaner (fast, effective - but temporary) to fast dissolve the encrusted oil, and then hit it with the engine cleaner before the brake cleaner had completely evaporated, this would have suspended all the dissolved crud in the fast disappearing brake cleaner (brake cleaner goes away fast, engine cleaner does not evaporate much at all).  

All the  fast acting advantage gained by the brake cleaner would have been transferred over to the engine cleaner which then would have continued removing even more of the crud.  I should have paid a lot more attention to the hidy-hole behind the spark plug == a lot more attention.  Then the hard hitting water blast could have flushed ALL the sand away on the first cleaning session instead of making me do two different clean ups.

Ya gotta get all the sand out of all the pockets and hidy-holes or you may wind up with some down inside your cylinder.    

2) Brake cleaner (acetone) is neat stuff, but it isn't neat for cleaning the clutch cover.  The clear plastic oil level window is fogged by it.  It can likely get fogged by most carb cleaners too.  Engine cleaner may not fog it, but I can't say that for sure because I didn't use engine cleaner on mine.  (Yep, I fogged mine up).  You might try hot soapy water in your wife's sink ....

3) When you work on your clutch rod don't try to take 100% all of the "wear" out of the system.  You do want a little stressed motion left in the system to release the clutch pack.  This is hard to judge because of all the free motion slop that exists in the squared off flat/round junction that actuates the little powdered metal eccentric piece.

You want to NOT use drill rod material -- go get some fully hardened dowel pins or some other fully hardened material (or break bad and actually buy the correct parts -- it won't kill you to pay Suzuki for a push rod that won't wear on the ends)

4) Assembly lubes on the cam are neat & necessary, as is the Web Cam anti-friction moly coating they leave on the cam itself.  So are all the solvents you used so freely during the rebuild.  Just remember to change your oil after the first hour or so of use to GET ALL THAT CRAP OUT OF YOUR ENGINE BEFORE IT TOASTS YOUR CLUTCH PACK !!!

5)  I sprayed brake cleaner (acetone) on my clutch pack when cleaning the cover surfaces.  The fiber discs absorbed the acetone and thinned out the oil that was originally in them, causing the clutch to lose oil viscosity and "stiction".  The clutch slipped for 3 days but then repeated heatup cycles and oil flowing through the clutch itself stabilized the situtation and my clutch returned to normal function.  Scared me good, but had no lasting bad effects other than that.

This is a cut from the resulting discussion about Web Cam telling Lancer why they recommend the Valvoline racing oil that they recommend and why they put the little tube of Red Line ZDDP Break In Grease in the box with the cam for you to use. It all keys around getting enough ZDDP to support the high lift cam during the first 500 miles or so which is the cam's break in period.  If you don't do this, then you can have infantile cam failure syndrome (spauling, rapid wear at the apex of the cam) so please consider it a recommendation of sorts.



============  cut and spliced out of the discussions  ==========


In short, if you back the technical requirements back out of the Web Cam recommended oils, then we are looking for 15,000 ppm of ZDDP -- unusually high amounts of of the key heavy pressure additives which are only found in specialty racing oils and a very very few motorcycle oils that have the necessary concentrations of ZDDP (Amisol).  If you don't want to spring for the very pricey Amisol oil, buy some expensive Valvoline racing oil or else buy a good diesel oil and bump it up a bit with this stuff.



If you get a Lancer Cam you may need to buy a bottle of this stuff and put a couple of ounces in your normal oil changes (and maybe 4 ounces in the first load of start up oil you actually break the cam in with).  The bottle will easily outlast the 500 mile break in period and who knows, it may be a good thing to do ongoing as ZDDP levels in oil drop every time a new oil standard comes out -- gotta protect all those sensors, catalytic converters and other mandated EPA stuff on all those brand new cars, now don't they?

You can buy the stuff at Jegs.com.  The base oil they use is Red Line synthetic so if you like to use a synthetic oil you haven't "polluted" your load of pretty synthetic oil by using the stuff,  you just tinted it a bit with some special red ZDDP good stuff.  

Think of it as synthetic based vitamin tonic for your cam shaft lobes ....

http://www.jegs.com/i/Red+Line+Oil/816/81403/10002/-1