The Rocker Arms Of Doom

[TheFlyingEngl...]

Okay, before I run into the history of the bike I'll start off with a small description of what's going on; rocker arms keep getting eaten.

I have a ZXR 400, 1999; absolutely lovely condition, the carbs were tuned, brakes rebuilt, suspension overhauled; repainted, quick action race throttle, hyperpro steering dampener; everything. It's an absolute weapon and an absolute gem of the bike.

It's had a history on this forum, had issues with the old engine which were just leaking carb boot issues which I should've just done in the first place. Anyway; the old engine went bang as I couldn't afford to fully rebuild it so I bought a fully reconditioned/rebuilt engine.

I put the engine in, absolutely no knocking noises, ticking what so ever; the engine was great, and I was sent pictures of it being rebuilt/reassembled.

Now after 500 miles the dreading ticking noise came and I noticed the head gasket was leaking; because I didn't have time to do it myself, it was sent off to a local (Pathetic) garage to be fixed. There were about 9 rocker arms damaged because apparently the oil passageways were blocked, not letting any oil up to the cams or arms itself, I could only replace the majorly destroyed (4) and the head gasket was done. The bike made a slight ticking noise (As it would with 5 other arms needing to be done but they cost £31 each). After 2 weeks the noise got louder, I found a set of 16 second hand rocker arms for about £10, with some being unusable. I whipped the top off, noticed there were 5 needing to be done; swapped them out and the bike was fine, no ticking noise at all. Took it out and it was great ended up doing about 1000 more miles.

About 3 weeks down the line the noise came back, took it all apart and noticed a shim jumped out but then noticed more damage, so just in case I knocked the shim out through disassembly I put everything back together and it was fine; rode it for another week and the noise came back; looked at the rocker arms, the front row had some wearing on them and I noticed on the back row, the last one to the left hand side was absolutely destroyed; on taking the cams out I cut myself. I looked at the cams and finally realized that they were torn apart.

I bought a set of second hand cams which were in good condition, slight pitting on one of the lobes on the exhaust cam but nothing serious; better condition than the ones I owned. I put them in the bike with the left over rocker arms I had and the bike was great; no noise what so ever; unfortunately I got lost on a long haul trip I had to make and ended up on the motorway with a high revving bike (Which I knew was a bad idea, especially if I was trying to bed things slightly in), got off the motorway and the noise returned; after the 300 mile trip I took it apart yet again, noticed there was another shim that jumped out and 1 rocker arm that was slightly worn, far front left (Exhaust cam). Not badly worn but it's still worn, I noticed in that same very corner that the rocker cover gasket was split, I've ordered a new one and made temporarily fixed it with sealant until the new gasket arrived (The sealant fixed the leak.)

I've put everything back together with some slightly worn rocker arms (But still flat rather than grooved) and the engine was okay, made a form of a ticking noise but extremely faint, I've been riding around for around 100 more miles and the noise faintly came back, it's still faint but it's there, it's kind of annoying me now; the bike's worth a bit of money, and I've spent an endless pit on it. I'm unsure on what to do next as I'm quite confused and baffled, something's definitely wrong; I'm not sure if the second-hand cams are slightly worn or if I should send off the rocker arms to be refurbished and then installed but my only worry about doing that is if the same issue occurs with the wearing of them straight away.

Any idea's...?

[Riejufixing]

It sounds as though the apparent underlying lubrication isssue has noit been fixed.

[TheFlyingEngl...]

[Riejufixing]

[stinkwheel]

Oil volume and oil pressure are not necessarily the same thing. At the sort of speeds that valvegear is doing, it needs a shitload of oil.

A modern sportsbike will empty itself of oil in about 30 seconds through a holed high pressure oilway.

I wonder if the cam caps were put back on in the correct order? If it was so starved of oil it knife-bladed the cams and followers, has it run the head on the cam seats?

Time to get the plastiguage and DGI out and see if those cams are in straight and tight..
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[TheFlyingEngl...]

These were two pictures from when I was checking the rocker arms a few weeks ago if that helps; I will look into everything else; I know the cams sit in correctly and the cam caps sit on fine; all locked down flat and in correct 1-2-3-4 order.

Unsure if these pictures were before or after I wiped the arms down to see the wear.

https://i.imgur.com/QoZW3Yt.png

https://i.imgur.com/7oxQzG3.png[/img]

[Riejufixing]

[stinkwheel]

[TheFlyingEngl...]

Now I'm unsure if I'm being an idiot or not but I thought I'd say this...

In this diagram there's the feed pipe to the cams, number 7; both ends are held in by 1 bolt; I took the top part of the feed off (The one one at the top) and (Unsure if oils supposed to come out, I thought it would flow or at least drip out) but no oil came out at all, there's like a finger tip amount on the tip and that's it, there was hardly anything and the oil was only around the hole; nothing I mean nothing what so ever dripped out.

Now should oil leak or or should there to be a tiny amount on the surface area with no dripping / leaking oil; I know what I'm betting on.

https://i.imgur.com/dUQ9Mqb.png

[stinkwheel]

If you turn the engine over with the rocker cover off, oil should be pretty much pissing about everywhere in fairly significant volume after the first couple of revolutions (obviously you'd want the cams in and CCT done up before doing this).

I wouldn't necessarily expect oil to run back out of a fully primed oilway if only one end is open to the atmosphere.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[TheFlyingEngl...]

[Robby]

I'm trying to see the point of those rocker arms. It looks they're just sitting in between the cab lobe and shim, not actually doing any rocking or leverage.

Anyway, it looks there is some kind of spring holding them back. Is it in the wrong way round and holding the rocker arms in constant contact with the cam, so there is no chance of getting oil in the right places.

[Riejufixing]

[Pete.]

Odds-on whomever 'rebuilt' the engine over-did it with gasket sealer and you've got cured sealer blocking an oil passageway.
____________________
a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[Sister Sledge]

The circled one looks odd - it has three separate stages of wear. It's as if the part has moved sideways 3 times at some point.
____________________
CCM 404 DS

[Tankie]

Ignore the damage for a minute.
First, the engine problem should of been checked by the supplier first , so now you have no warranty.
The problem is no oil pressure, so remove the oil filter to see if the plastic seal has been left in place.

If the filter is fine and oil pump is working then the problem points to ether a blocked pipe /oilway ,or a worn bottom end starving the top end of oil.
So in conclusion if the filter is ok it looks like an engine strip to find the problem.
____________________
Always learning, everyday is a school day

[Pete.]

He wouldn't have managed 5 miles on the bottom end without oil pressure never mind 500.
____________________
a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[Tankie]

Lets wait and see
____________________
Always learning, everyday is a school day

[redeem ouzzer]

Spitting shims is never a good sign, and neither is slinging top end components at an engine that is eating them for no apparent reason every few hundred miles. I’d be either stripping that engine completely to look for a possible oil issue (Pete’s theory of rogue gasket silicone is a possibility, some folk still think it’s ok to use it in a 4t engine build) or binning the engine as a bad job.
____________________
Be a REAL MAN!

[TheFlyingEngl...]

Okay, after inspecting the cam caps I looked through and made sure there were no blockages; there wasn't. I used a syringe as I didn't have anything else at the time to see if the passageway for the cams (Oil way) was blocked and it isn't, oil runs freely into the cams with no blockages which seems odd; now I did state that when I took the number 7 pipe (Oil feed line for the cams) it wasn't blocked and it oil pumped out of it.

The oil filter had nothing wrong with it (Checked the filter I took off as It was replaced last time) I checked the oil for any metal chunks of filings too and there wasn't any (Just checked in case).

Now something that I did notice on around the 2nd change which infruated me was that after I got the engine back from the people that fit the new gasket they didn't flush the engine, the breather pipe was clogged of head gasket remains; I did clean the pipe out and air box (Wasn't much in the air box) which has slightly worried me as there might be a blockage elsewhere or that gunk has got stuck somewhere yet somehow the top end is getting oil still and there's no blockage there' which is getting me quite frustrated.

https://i.imgur.com/vxQIa9x.jpg

Inspecting the cams, there are no rough edges and there's no wear on them, there's a slightly worn lobe from one of the rocker arms which has been worn but nothing major; the cam caps are clear with no blockages.

So I'm a bit stuck, I'm starting to get quite annoyed as anyone would with this many issues; I'm sending away my spare rocker arms to be refurbished for whenever I find the issue and the cams to be inspected just in case there are any issues with those too.

Apart from that I'm starting to believe that I'll have to whack the engine out and try and get it all sorted out before the end of the month as that's when I next need it back but I'll definitely won't be touching it if this issue persists; what is extremely odd is that every time we've got further into it all, the less wear has happened; I know the wearing is extremely awful and it definitely shouldn't show signs that quickly. The bike has done 2,000 miles with the issues inbetween with the new engine. This time the ticking noise is very quiet and the wear is little "compared" to the previous wear on the other rockers. Which is getting very confusing.

[steve the grease]

A classic problem can be that the gauze on the oil strainer in the sump is clogged with shite, bits of old gasket, blue hylomar whatever, so only picks up a bit of oil. Theres enough to lube the crank , but nothing left to get upstairs to lube the valve gear.

[TheFlyingEngl...]

[stinkwheel]

[TheFlyingEngl...]

Well gentlemen, I believe we're onto something; the oil strainer is huge and it basically fell out as soon as I dropped the sump...but I think we're onto the problem; I'm going to stick my camera into the hole to see if there's furthermore blockage.

Just to note; there was a lot in the dark picture inside the sump. Small tiny bits of metal was present but not a lot (Can only guess that's the rocker arm wear; most of it must have come out through the hot oil change.

There's also crap in the oil radiator feed or around it; looks like where there's been crap off the road has gotten in or it's just more crap so I'll clean out the pipes on that too.

Do you think this might be the issue if not a major contributor?

https://i.imgur.com/JxAQjpl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/O9x0k6I.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/kOKY8vD.jpg

[Riejufixing]