I had a decent amount of time for once to work on Victoria, so I started on the home stretch of getting her road worthy. This meant getting timing marks spot on, valve clearances triple checked, and all bolts torqued to spec.
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Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. -Winston Churchill
Everything was coming together well, and I reminded myself that action is better than inaction. Even if you don’t make a choice, you’ve still made a decision. So I put on my war face and waged on. Once you’ve gotten the momentum started, might as well ride it out and see where it takes you.
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I got to the point of putting back on the valve covers and counting my blessings. Despite the weather being overcast and raining off and on, I was still going to get Victoria started and running for the first time this season. Something she hasn’t done since last summer.
I hadn’t put on the mufflers yet since I hadn’t gotten them repainted - O’Reilly only had one can of VHT exhaust paint in black when I was there last. I thought it would be fitting for her to roar to life anyway, let the world know she was back and meant business.
I slid the key into the ignition and twisted it to on. The neutral and oil lights glowed as the fuel gauge began to rise, stopping a hair over the full mark. I hovered my thumb over the start button in anticipation. I flicked the kill switch to run and pressed the start button.
Snap!
I released the start button and looked down at the right head. This picture was a little ways after finding what created the snap, but it pretty much says it all.
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Pulled off snapping the end of the camshaft that drives the fuel pump clean off. Apparently I had forgotten to add the top bolt for the fuel pump cover (I think that’s what it’s called anyway), which in turn allowed the fuel pump assembly to become misaligned enough to get cockeyed but remain in place due to the bottom bolt. And well, it was enough of an angle to break it right off.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. -Henry Ford
I didn’t let this set back get the best of me; far from it. Sure, I kicked myself a bit for making such a mistake, but I tossed my anguish to the side and let determination kick back in. I removed the valve cover, timing belt, cam gear, cam gear plate (or whatever it’s called), and rocker assembly. The camshaft popped out rather easily for me, probably because the end of it was tossed into the junk box.
Fortunately, I had a spare right cam on the workbench from my original set of heads. Slid that one in, loosely attached the rocker assembly, and properly attached the fuel pump assembly after cleaning up a couple of small gouges with my Dremel. It sucks when you make a mistake, but you have to brush yourself off and get back on that horse. I originally thought about not posting about my mistake to protect my pride; however, I realized someone might be able to learn from my mistake and that this blunder added to the story of my bike.
And since I finally got to post at length about my journey with the heads, I’m going to give a shoutout to Oldewing for hooking me up with an assembled set of heads to help get the old girl back on the road a little faster - and if you mail someone a check in this day and age, go the extra mile.
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