Hoping someone can offer me some advice and guidance please. I bought my VF1000FE (37,500 miles) about one month ago, and posted a New Boy post shorlty after. I had the bike serviced yesterday, as it wasn’t running when I bought it (had been laid up for a while) and I wasn’t sure of it’s history and wanted someone to have a good look at it for me.
The valve clearances were checked during the service and whilst the mechanic was in there he showed me the cam wear, pitting on all of them. He told they were bad enough to require replacing, can anyone give me a pointer on what my options are? Would be much appreciated.
Freddie, pitted cams are not necessarily a bad thing in my experience. Its more to do with the ridges on either side of where the follower rubs. If that is “feelerble” then its time to change things but if they are negligible and youve got a little pitting on the face then "carry on regardless" There are people wholl reface cams and re profile them for you. I know Piper Cams for example will.
Also by fitting a Dave Dodge oil kit will preserve the cams for longer and inject clean filtered oil at pressure on all the cams at all the revs and at idle
my engine sounds quieter as well
The best insurance I ever got for £150.00[8D][:D][:)]
I’m not sure if the ridges on either side of where the follower rubs are ‘feelerable’, but there was a good amount of pitting on the faces of each one. I guess I’m concerned they can only get worse in time (?).
Am I right to assume this pitting is caused by the top of the engine not getting enough oil and possibly the cams not being sufficiently hardened (as I think I read somewhere before)?
I am planning to get the oil modification that a lot of people have had done in any case, and I guess I’m just thinking to get the cams sorted and then I’ll hopefully have a trouble free motor for a good time to come. Or perhaps getting the oil mod done would simply prevent things getting worse and negate the need to for cam work.
I’ll certainly check out someone like Piper Cams though; would be interested to know what refacing would cost.
over the years ive read quite a few posts about pitted cams, the general impression i got was that pitting wasnt a major issue depending on the severity, the main thing is ware, if your cams have a nice rounded lobe with no ridges either across the cam lobe or grooving running around, as martin says i wouldnt be over concerned ( i had heard of some of these bikes showing pitted cams on there first service interval)… if your cams are worn its a good bet your rockers would be worn too.
Earlier this year i had a crank re-ground at S.E.P kegworth who specialise in motorcycle crank/cam refurbishing, top end rebuilding ect,
at the time i enquired about what they could do with cams, and was told that they could spray weld and re-grind bearing surfaces back to original spec, but they couldnt add metal to a cam lobe, it was only possible to re-grind and polish to a mirror finish,
the work i had done by them was top notch and at a reasonable price too, if you contacted them they would probably be able to help/advise.
…thanks Lloyd and Pete for the replies, much appreciated.
I saw the wear on the cam lobes myself when the head cover was off in the workshop this week, wish I’d taken some photos. I not sure if the wear was too excessive but the engineer who looked at it for me knows his Honda V4s, having worked on them many times and he thought they didn’t look great. And one of the rocker arms was damaged (the collar on it’s shaft was broken off). We replaced that (as he had a spare one for me) but it’s possible one of the others is damaged too, but we ran out of time to check further that day.
I will get the oil mod done soon but was wondering about getting any necessary work done on the cams too at this time if it needs it, so that I can go forward with a healthy engine with sorted cams and more oil at the top end. It would be nice to ride along never worrying about cam condition or wear in the future.
Thanks for the contact info for S.E.P in Kegworth Pete, I’ll give them a call and see what they say.