I'm gonna yank the valve cover when I get back from GA and check things out. At least I have a full set of valves in the old head, but if my suspicions are correct and I do indeed have bent valves, I'll very likely just put another engine in the thing, as they're cheap enough.

 

Thanks to hamlin6, I have the carb gasket I needed! However, I didn't get back from GA until Friday evening, and had a work emergency yesterday that kept me from working on the bike. I have to leave today for Roanoke, VA. Things should calm down a little by the time I get back from there, so I'll have to time to really look at the situation with the bike.

 

Moved the bike from my garage to the shop. Gonna start teardown tomorrow to see what went wrong. I'll keep everyone updated.

 

So, I pulled the carbs last night and shined a light down the intake runners, and was immediately met with bent valves in cylinder #2. Upon closer inspection, it was worse than that. Dropped the engine and pulled the head, and this is what I found:

3 bent valves in cylinder 2, and the other valve had broken the head off and then broke in half. Beat the chamber and the piston up pretty good.
1 bent intake valve in cylinder 4. You can see where it kissed the piston, but it didn't damage it.

The tensioner didn't seem very tight when I pulled it apart - I'm wondering if that's what caused the chain to skip. It seemed tight to feel it, but the cams were way off timing-wise, and there was evidence of the chain rubbing up against the head itself.
The sad part is, I *could* fix this - but it's not worth the time and money. I picked up a replacement engine cheap and I'm picking it up this afternoon.

Carnage pics:

Cylinder #2:


Cylinder #4:


Head:


Valve carnage:

 

New engine is in the bike. Oil, filter, and tank and I'll be able to fire her tomorrow.

 

You need to keep those valves and make some kind if weird bike folk art out of them.

 

I may make a little man and mount him on the handlebars lol

 

 

I know I haven't updated this in a while, but there's not really anything to update. Bike is sitting in the corner in the garage. I actually haven't ridden it but around the parking lot, since I don't have it tagged yet and it needs a rear tire. Plastics will be here next week, but I won't be able to touch them until the weekend because I'll be on a plane to MN Monday morning. When I get back, I'll put the plastics on and upload a pic of the finished product.

 

Plastics actually came in yesterday!
I started work on them, and so far so good, except that someone had put a 95/96 taillight assembly on the bike (I didn't know the diff), so now my rear fairings won't fit until I source the proper taillight & bracket. Gonna need a 97-98 seat also, apparently they are different as well. Can someone give me a rundown of changes between 95-96 and 97-98?

Here's how she sits with no taillight on one side haha: