realgasket damaged my camshaft tach drive??!!?

[49er]

6 ft lbs? damn! For some reason I had 10 ft lbs in my head. I guess that's why it broke... although 10 still doesn't sound very tight to me. I'm actually not sure where it broke, since it was the last bolt on the cover and I haven't pulled the cover back off yet to look. But that procedure sounds like exactly what I'll need to do.

That gasket, although it says it will work for my bike, is shaped differently. Tomorrow I think I will try silicone one last time, if that doesn't work I'm ordering a new camshaft and stock gasket!

Do I need/want to replace both the intake and exhaust shafts at the same time? Or is just exhaust fine? Will I need to replace all my shims again with different sizes? Anything else I need to replace at the same time?

No you don't have to replace both cams, but mostly they are offered for sale in pairs. The profiles will be slightly different from yours through differing wear patterns, so you will need to re-shim each exhaust valve.
You may be lucky when you remove your cam cover. If there is some part of the broken bolt above the head surface you can use vicegrips to withdraw whats left of the bolt. You might want to replace the cam bearing bolts (also 6mm) with new ones in case they have been over torqued by a PO as well. By torqueing at 10 instead of 6 you have exceeded the recommended figure by 67%.

[SqDancerLynn1]

6 ft lbs is not much, If you used a reg ft lbs torque wrench ? They are very inacurate at that setting. You would be better off using an inch lbs

[hikermikem]

How I removed my broken valve cover bolt.

Also, I managed to break a bolt off while tightening the cover back on . I really wasn't tightening it very hard either! Does anyone know of any way to get it out without having to drill an oversized hole and tap it? Not looking forward to that...

I'm in the middle of adjusting my valves as well ('82 650G), and when I removed the cover one of the cover bolts broke off. Luckily it left about 5/8" up for me to grab. I started to sweat... getting ready for the confrontation between brain vs. metal!

HOWEVER, no way was this coming out without a fight:

Round 1 (Ding) - I applied PB Blaster (IMO best penetrating oil out there) for a while & used a hacksaw to cut a slot into the top of the protruding bolt shaft, then used a screwdriver with a wrench on the blade and bent the screwdriver before the slot broke apart.

Round 2 (Ding) - Applied more PB Blaster and cracked a beer to ponder the situation. I cracked & pondered for a while, then decided to let the PBB sit overnight.

Round 3 (Ding) - Next evening I bought a brandy new pair of Craftsman visegrips thinking, "I got you now you little SOB". More PBB, grabbed ahold of the little sucker with my new weapon & tried to move it - wouldn't budge, and I was afraid I would break it off if I pulled any harder. Sooooo... you want to play hardball eh?

Round 4 (Ding, ding, ding) - Brought a heat gun home from work the next night (because a standard hairdryer isn't hot enough) and set it up facing the aluminum section where the bolt was. Applied more PBB and let it get hot. Waited (yes, with a cold one) for about 20 minutes & tried the visegrips again. YES, it started to move! Worked it back & forth while applying PBB and got it to thread out without any damage to the aluminum.

As you most likely already know, aluminum expands more when heated than the steel does, thus separating ever so slightly the bolt from the case. This process work very well, but you must have patience, or you will be drilling & tapping & unhappy.

PS - the heat gun I used will not melt alum, I think it might get to around 400 F. Alum melts at around 1000 F.

Good luck,

Mike

[79-GS550-L]

6 ft lbs is not much, If you used a reg ft lbs torque wrench ? They are very inacurate at that setting. You would be better off using an inch lbs

The smallest torque wrench I was able to find is inch lbs... but the lowest it goes is 120!

Turns out the bolt was sticking up above the head a bit so I managed to dremel a slot and get it out with a screwdriver. Very relieved about that :-D

I cut a new thin silicone gasket today and reassembled it. The tach gear goes in and seems to be seated perfectly (crankshaft turns freely, no odd noises) but stupid Lowes did not have ANY M6 bolts! So I can't even test it out since I'm missing that one bolt. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get some bolts elsewhere and see whether this works.

BTW, does anyone know how hot the head gets? I assume it would NEVER get above 500 deg, right?

[79-GS550-L]

Well I don't want to get ahead of myself but right now it seems like the thin red silicone was a success! I was able to ride the bike briefly for the first time since I started my valve adjustment a few weeks ago. Tomorrow I think I will ride it around a little more and then pull the cover off and make sure the gear is still doing alright and not splintering into little pieces or anything. Also I'll dig up the exact part number for that silicone (I got it from McMaster-Carr). It's great stuff.

[mark]

Well I don't want to get ahead of myself but right now it seems like the thin red silicone was a success! I was able to ride the bike briefly for the first time since I started my valve adjustment a few weeks ago. Tomorrow I think I will ride it around a little more and then pull the cover off and make sure the gear is still doing alright and not splintering into little pieces or anything. Also I'll dig up the exact part number for that silicone (I got it from McMaster-Carr). It's great stuff.

Hope it works out for you. Then on to the carbs, eh?

[79-GS550-L]

Hope it works out for you. Then on to the carbs, eh?

Yeah. All I wanted to do was the carbs! But I figured I should balance them, and before balancing I should do valve clearances... so that's how the mess started.

I got a reply from realgaskets... they said I should be using the rg-gs550-2 gasket, not the -1, as the -2 is thinner. But the -2 is listed for '82 engines and the -1 is listed for '78-'82. Maybe I've got 82 heads on my 79 engine? I dunno, still trying to figure this one out. Realgaskets sent me the -2 gasket, which I will try out.

[t3rmin]

Many, many people have used RealGaskets with mechanical tach drives, myself included. This is a fluke or a product of the wrong part number (as you mentioned), but RealGaskets are not incompatible with mechanical tach gears...

Glad you're making progress!

[Nessism]

Many, many people have used RealGaskets with mechanical tach drives, myself included. This is a fluke or a product of the wrong part number (as you mentioned), but RealGaskets are not incompatible with mechanical tach gears...

Glad you're making progress!

The problem as I understand it is with engines that have the tach driven gear in the cover - thus, extra gasket thickness will reduce the gear contact area.

[t3rmin]

The problem as I understand it is with engines that have the tach driven gear in the cover - thus, extra gasket thickness will reduce the gear contact area.

Yeah, I know. Didn't have a problem with it on my 650 with the gear in the cover. Real positive engagement still, as far as I could tell. Don't most of the GSs have the gear in the cover? And how many of us are using RealGaskets? I can't think the two are incompatible, seeing as this is the first time I've ever heard this come up...

[79-GS550-L]

Yeah, I know. Didn't have a problem with it on my 650 with the gear in the cover. Real positive engagement still, as far as I could tell. Don't most of the GSs have the gear in the cover? And how many of us are using RealGaskets? I can't think the two are incompatible, seeing as this is the first time I've ever heard this come up...

How thick is the gasket for your 650? It appears to me that there is an error on the realgaskets site, so it lists the thicker one as being compatible with the driven-gear-in-the-cover bikes instead of the thinner one (at least just for the GS550). Now that I have my homemade thin one on, it's working great. Realgaskets shipped me their thin one today, so in a few days I will test it out and let you all know how it works. I really think it will work just fine.

[t3rmin]

How thick is the gasket for your 650? It appears to me that there is an error on the realgaskets site, so it lists the thicker one as being compatible with the driven-gear-in-the-cover bikes instead of the thinner one (at least just for the GS550). Now that I have my homemade thin one on, it's working great. Realgaskets shipped me their thin one today, so in a few days I will test it out and let you all know how it works. I really think it will work just fine.

I think I was a little ambiguous earlier. I agree that it's totally possible a drastically over-thick gasket (in this case due to an error on their part) could cause trouble.

I just didn't want people to get the wrong idea from this thread that RealGaskets are not compatible with mechanical tach gears on the valve cover. RealGaskets are a great product and a great company to do business with, and provided you end up with the right one, you shouldn't have any trouble.

Incidentally, though, the one they sent me for my 650 was at least 3 times thicker than the stock paper gasket. Seems like with the angle and cut of those gears you'd have a bit of leeway... Plus the silicone compresses a bit.

[mikebadar.j]

I have a 1982 GS850 GZ that had a severe oil leak between the valve cover and the head. I tried several fixes:

1. OEM gasket;
2. Loctite 518;
3. RTV black.

None of them worked. I installed a valve cover gasket from "realgaskets" and the leaks were sealed. The tachometer drive/driven gears are located in the head. The added clearance between the head and the valve cover after installing the gasket from "realgaskets" did not affect the operation of the tachometer. Maybe the problem of "mangled" tach. gears was the result of using "realgaskets" gasket on a 4 valve engine. Did anyone contact someone at Realgaskets about the problem? My experience with "realgaskets" is nothing but 100% satisfaction; although I have the 2 valve engine.

Mike
Louisville, CO

[79-GS550-L]

I did contact them, looks like there's some confusion about which gasket is the right one for this engine, but they've sent me a new (thinner) one, should be here in a day or two. I'll post more when I've had a chance to test it out.

[79-GS550-L]

Ok I received the RG-GS550-2 today and installed it. It is .06" as opposed to the .08" or .09" one I got before (those numbers are from memory, I hope they're right). The new one is the same thickness as the one I cut before. I installed it and ran it around the block, the tach worked fine. I don't think I have any leaks but it is hard to tell as it was raining and the engine was already greasy.

So bottom line, realgaskets work fine on a gs550 but you might want to give realgaskets a call to make sure you get the appropriate one for your engine.