So after nursing my ankle back to nearly new condition, I decided the best approach to making sure the cam was right was to simply re-open the rocker box. I set cylinder #1 at TDC and put the cam chain into place. [/URL][/IMG]. As you can see, the mark on the left side of the cam is not exactly vertical when the #1 cylinder is at TDC.
Then rotated the engine so cylinder #2 was at TDC to check the dowel pin position on the right side and it looks very close to 6 O'Clock [/URL[/IMG]
Next I rotated the crank back to place cylinder #1 at TDC and then checked the indicator on the right side of the cam to see if it was bisected by the deck surface [/URL/[/IMG]. (Remember that TDC on the #1 cylinder has the mark on the left side of the cam slightly off vertical and heading in the direction of 11 O'Clock.
So to get the left side mark on the cam to face 12:00 noon, the indicator on the right side of the cam is slightly below the deck surface. To set the left side of the cam at 12 noon, the #1 cylinder has not yet reached TDC. To bisect the right side indicator with the deck surface the left side mark on the cam is slightly past noon and heading in the direction of 1 O'Clock when viewed from the left side of the engine. This also makes the #1 cylinder come to rest before reaching TDC.
I slipped the cam chain forward one tooth and backward one tooth but both of these exercises exaggerated the condition. This leads me to believe that I have the cam chain on correctly and I am as close to proper timing that I can achieve with this set-up.
What do you guys think? Do the photos look alright? Are things timed correctly? Should the deck surface bisect the right side cam indicator precisely? Is it possible the sprocket is slightly off as noted in one of the posts above?
My ankle won't make through another bout of kick backs!
Jon
