Hopefully, once inside the cam case you’ll find the culprit.

If it was my bike I’d bet on an errant dog hair.

And again, thanks for posting the process, it’s surely going to help others.

 

I finally got some time to get the bike apart again. Between the holidays and work I haven't had a free weekend for a while. Pulled the cam cover and removed the oil pump. There were some bits of what looks like cast aluminum in the bottom of the cam chest. Also, when I blew out the oil passage going into the lifter bores from the oil filter housing more of the same came out. I am not sure where this would have come from or how it would have gotten past the oil filter but it was definitely there. Almost looks like super tiny dirt clods but definely hard like metal. I have looked at everything and don't see any signs of contact anywhere. Possibly when I went through the engine it was in there somwhere and I jared it loose or it is debris from the engine break in process or something. Very strange. Not sure this is the culprit but it's something all the same. I cleaned everything out very well. Checked the lifter bores and lifters and all seems ok. I will install the new oil pump and put it all back together tomorrow and see what happens.

 

That’s an odd one, even for this needle in the haystack trouble. Wonder what the pump gerotor looks like? If memory serves, debris in the oil would cause the symptoms you had.

One thought, doesn’t the oil flow to the lifters run from 1E-1I - 2I-2E? Having trouble getting my head around the 2E lifter being the noisy one.

Thanks for the update.

 

The inside of the old pump looked ok. I will say the new pump it harder to turn by hand than the old pump. I get what your saying about the lifter oil feed order. To me it seemed likely it would be the last lifter that gets fouled if debris got in the oil gallery as that oil feed is essentially at the end of the line. However, I pulled the rockers, pushrods, and lifters and spun the motor with the starter and watched to make sure oil was coming out of all the ports and the front lifter bores started shooting oil first so the oil must be thick enough to not need the back pressure of the last lifter to start pumping oil through the other three.

 

Bike is all back together. New oil pump is in and I cleaned out all the oil lines and passages. Put the K&P oil filter back on as I wasn't using it during the break in period. Oil pressure seems higher for sure as oil shot over my head when I was checking to see if oil was getting to the lifter bores. When I checked it prior to the new pump oil just kind of pissed out. I guess we'll fing out tomorrow. I was going to go for a spin but the battery was dead. I guess I forgot to put it on the trickle charger.

 

Good luck, hoping it’s an event free quiet ride.

Forgetting the charger is my deal, a few weeks ago I did the first oil change on the new motor kit and left the oil cap at home. Rode to a buddy’s, passing cars and getting old-man hooliganism fun the entire ride. Jumped off the bike and realized my *** is wet and the entire back end of the bike is too. Lost 1/2 quart and that VR1 is some sticky stuff, ran thru many cans of breakclean.

Fun call home to the old lady, I left the oil cap off, can you bring it to me: you did WHAT, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU, mocking my voice. It’s going to be a bit before I call her out (again) on the treatment of vehicles (mainly brakes).

 

Any particular reason for using VR1? I've read the additive package is not the greatest for street use. It has more ZDDP, helpful for flat tappet motors, but we have roller tappets. Also it's not for wet clutches, so using it in the primary is out if you need it in a pinch.

I was pondering using VR1 until I did some further research and decided to just stay with Castrol GTX, which has served me well for over 50 years in all my vehicles.

John

 

No dice. It's actually worse than before. Still sounds like the lifters in the rear but at this point who knows. After about 10 minutes the bike lost power and I was barely able to get it home. Not really sure what my next step is going to be. I'm kind of over it at this point. Very frustrating. I am going to take it to a shop and get a second opinion as I am not a mechanic which at this point is evidently clear. Perhaps it is the bottom end after all.

 

I'm sorry to hear that, you've put a lot of work into this bike. Good luck with the second opinion.

John

 

Well I went and talked to a mechanic and he said that frankly he thought he could rebuild the engine and the issue could still be there. He suggested starting with a used engine. I am not ready to take on someone elses potential problems so I am going to talk to hammer Dan again and may just ship him the whole engine. I think that may be my best hope. The fact that there was metal in the cam chest when I just went through it leads me to believe something bigger is going on. I was just in there before and cleaned everything out so that has to be coming from the bottom end. Either it's debris or something is getting chewed up perhaps.