So my valve clearance became extremely excessive all of a sudden. The weird part is my bike ran fine before. I had taken it on its maiden voyage since my second time in the engine earlier this spring (~70-100 miles) and one thing I noticed was that the cam chain appeared to have gotten a bit on the loose side by the end and began to make a small amount of noise but nothing too worrisome sounding. When I got it back I tightened up the cam chain and left it to sit for a while (I got busy) and have even started it occasionally just to make sure that gas was flowing through the carbs. It ran fine every time.
Today I replaced my old fuse box with a bunch of in-line blade fuses and went to start it to check my work and could not get it started properly. The right side would fire and run but the left side exhaust stayed cold so I assumed I got it running on one cylinder but it made a horrible clacking noise. I check the compression and it was not there on the left side so that led me to check the valve clearances and found that at top dead center my left exhaust valve had extremely excessive play (like 2-3 mm). Now when I’m trying to reset the valve clearance on my left exhaust, it almost is as if the screw is not long enough to get the proper clearance. It can achieve the proper clearance but the locking nut has a little bit that isn't threading over the whole screw. (See picture)
*this is a rough estimate of the clearance. I have not set it yet.
Could my adjusting of the cam chain have messed my valve timing? Another question would be did I skip a tooth? I feel like I was never running too loose... if anything probably more on the too tight side after I had re-tightened the chain.
I think my next steps will be to reset everything from ground zero and see if it will start again because I’m guessing if I somehow skipped a tooth it probably won’t start until I fix that.
Today I replaced my old fuse box with a bunch of in-line blade fuses and went to start it to check my work and could not get it started properly. The right side would fire and run but the left side exhaust stayed cold so I assumed I got it running on one cylinder but it made a horrible clacking noise. I check the compression and it was not there on the left side so that led me to check the valve clearances and found that at top dead center my left exhaust valve had extremely excessive play (like 2-3 mm). Now when I’m trying to reset the valve clearance on my left exhaust, it almost is as if the screw is not long enough to get the proper clearance. It can achieve the proper clearance but the locking nut has a little bit that isn't threading over the whole screw. (See picture)
*this is a rough estimate of the clearance. I have not set it yet.
Could my adjusting of the cam chain have messed my valve timing? Another question would be did I skip a tooth? I feel like I was never running too loose... if anything probably more on the too tight side after I had re-tightened the chain.
I think my next steps will be to reset everything from ground zero and see if it will start again because I’m guessing if I somehow skipped a tooth it probably won’t start until I fix that.