I second what Stew said,  it might help to use a small  dab of grease on the base of the spring inside the cover to hold it in place as you put in on, you should feel only the spring tension ,easily held by your one hand.

Guys, I found a photo that I had forgotten I took on my cell that I snapped  after the side of the filter cover got blown off....(The size of the blown off piece was about that of a silver dollar.  The rest of the filter cover and  fasteners were intact, as was the filter still in the cavity.)

To my embarrassment and yet, to my relief, I saw that I had installed the filter backwards.  Thus the "problem" was my own fault.

Thank you for bearing with me through this drama of my own making.  
And again, thank you for your many suggestions and tips.  

I will not be going to inquire about a room in the memory care unit of a nearby nursing home.  (You will one day be in your eighties too)

This is not a heads up, but I feel certain the "old age" is not for sissies.

...and we learned something new too.  You can drive 200 miles with a filter in backwards. I think we assumed the impending explosion was rather immediate, but now we know it isn't  

See Bob...you taught us kiddos something new.  

DragBikeMike wrote on 04/17/20 at 12:39:52:



Thing is, the spring was cockeyed and I think this caused the filter to be skewed when I pushed it in and fastened the filter cover down...

The 200 miles of "good" riding is impressive to me too.

Bokobob wrote on 04/17/20 at 16:16:19:



On this bike - as well as a few others I have opened up - a Yamaha xs650 is another one - all the bearings in the bottom end are ball bearings. They can live with splashed up oil. Your one and only pressure lubricated bearing on this bike is the cam shaft, and the xs had ball bearings there as well.
For giggles you could check and see if that has a higher than the range of plastiguage/mic gap. If it was higher, something like lucas oil additive or a thicker than the 10W40 recommended may cover your extra gap for decades to come. Or better yet, you could take out the cam shaft and take it to one of those Nascar people who coat it with a moly Teflon coating. That will take up a little extra room and most importantly it takes up oil and holds it. Therefore you never have a dry start on the bike for the only bearing that cares.
In all honesty, if you ran the bike in 1 continuous 200 mile ride you'd have likely killed that bearing. But if you did it over 10-20 rides, you'd not even have scratched the surface.

Cool.
Srinath.

You didn't damage anything I'm sure.
At next valve check see if you can stick your fingers through and see if the camshaft can move - I'll bet it doesn't - and that pretty much should tell you its not really bad.
Run 20W50 if you prefer - it usually doesn't hurt anything anyway.
Cool.
Srinath.