I'm not too proud of the story. Let's just say I have my moments, all bad.
When I was doing my valve adjustment, all I can conclude is that I got turned around when I was taking the camshafts from the table to the bike, and I reversed them. I was in total brain-fart mode and as I slowly tightened the bearing caps down, all four valves on the left cylinder got bent. Believe me, it doesn't take much pressure - these things are pretty fragile. As soon as I saw that the engine wouldn't turn over, I knew I was f****d.
So as I type this I just finished torquing down the cylinder head nuts. I'm not rushing anything this time. I'm reading the manual very carefully. The valve adjustment was expensive enough. This little mishap cost me another $240 just in parts from Triumph (via BikeBandit.com): head gasket, 4 valves, seals, o-rings, gaskets, etc. When I get the cams back in, basically, I have to start the valve adjustment all over again.
On top of
that, I've spent well over a grand on parts for an
extreme make over on my bike this past winter. That project has been seriously derailed. I was hoping to have it done for the Kootenay Raid in July but I don't think I'll have the time or money to finish all of it. More details on that later.
