Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech camshaft identification

can anyone out there identify the cams on a bonneville america by the casting number?? would like to verify wich is intake and wich is exhaust cant be done by phoning a dealership they seem to only understand part number, wich is not on the cam itself. any help would be great.

I checked my Haynes manual.
The intake cam has a groove in it right next to the drive gear.
The exhaust cam doesn't.

+1 on the manual (shop or Haynes, I have both). Find the groove!!! It is absolutely critical that you get them placed correctly. Ask me how I know...

i cant resist, how do you know..????

dont feel bad i may have a somewhat similiar situation on my hands. i might as well explain.

i added the 904 wiseco kit to my america believe it or not to cure a problem found that i wont get into. at the time of this installation i also added a 3 angle valve job to the head so upon final assembly the top end would now be bullet proof.....or so i thought.

bike runs great, with the exception of an incredibly noisy valve train assembly. embarassingly noisy valve train. before everyone jumps in with tips like camshaft gears are not pre-loaded and the timing chain is not adjusted i can tell you i have had the cams out 1 million times checking and re-checking studying specs assembly and clearences. to no avail and it makes no sense whatsoever.

as i speak im back in the garage giving it another go, this time im cutting valve shim clearence down to near nill just to see if this makes any kind of change or lessens the noise.

i have never run into anything like this before and i refuse to be beaten. i will not pay a dealership to fix my bike, i will suffer, i will miss riding season if need be.

Be very careful I had a friend of mine who did the 904 kit and didn't like the noise in his top end and tried to cut clearances down and smoked the top end.

I put them in reversed and bent four valves when I started to torque down the head.

It'll run quieter with synthetic oil if that helps.

yes dogg your right,
the reason for the stock cam clearence as i understand is the cam profiles have "quieting ramps", and at the stock clearence because of the ramps you actually have none (no clearence) if that makes sense. im just grabbing at straws and have no intentions of anything but just starting it once i re-shim it closer.

however, you just thickened the mystery. seems someone else has traveled this road with the same result of the 904 kit. what eventually happened to fix his ride..??? did the bike return to stock components or was there another solution that presented itself. please continue story im at the end of my rope on this one.

All he did was re-do the 904 and put the cams back where they are supposed to be. Was more to the repair due to the head work and pistons and all. I haven't heard the bike since he re-did it or talked to him about it so I don't know if it is still noisy or not. He just restored an old BSA Rocket and that has been our topic of discussion lately. I'll ask him when I see him again.

good enough i would greatly appreciate this.
tommorow i will get the video camera out and post a video on youtube of bike running perhaps this will help the "think tank" somewhat. it would also be very interesting to have the opinion of someone who has experienced the same issue watch that video, niose comparison i guess you could say.

good thought brian,

after the rebuild the only oil i had on hand was rotella 15w-40 so i decided to use it just to get motor fired, not to stay in for riding. i am going to drain and try proper wieght but it cant be synthetic yet as you have to run natural oil for atleast 2500 miles for the rings to seat. synthetic ive been told is to slippery for cutting rings.

mine seems a little noisy since i did my work. have about 1k on it and it runs good and hard. i do know that my exhaust valves are on the loose side so i think thats where mu noise comes from. plus i have a small shim under the bucket so i am sure that adds to the noise

Frank

i havent changed anything yet im going to leave it at stock specs and reassemble within the hour. but there will be a video posted by tommorrow for further speculatuion. i will start a new continuation thread welcoming all to watch perhaps some light will be shed be sure to watch for it.

True doogie, but an "overly" noisy train in these motors is not a good thing. Mike's was making this gawd awful metal clanking sound, (still ran with us all day at ton+ speeds) that is a bad thing...new entire top end+, pistons/sleeves and all.
Man his bike is hexed for sure.

Oh, so you heard it, I was unaware of that.

Richard, when I rebuilt my old KZ1100 I got this advice (from Superbike Mike Keyte, knows his stuff).
First startup, regular oil, second gear, get on it hard for 2-3 seconds, back off and let it coast down.
Repeat this cycle 10 times, this seats the rings.
Oil change (regular oil).
500 miles, no more than 2/3 redline.
Oil change (regular oil).
1000 miles no more than 3/4 redline.
Oil change (synthetic oil).
It's good to go.
Ran perfectly.

At this point, I am assuming you already know which cam is which but for other's edification, here is a pic from the manual:



So... is this problem solved or not? I see two threads on this.

If not, it would definitely help to keep it all in one thread so people don't have to be providing the same info in multiple threads.

Let me know which one to lock!