Ah well, that didn't go so good
Started off in the rain which started to clear about 40 miles out and the skies were looking good.
Stopped in the service area to put my earpieces in and I could smell it immediately. Yeh, the damned oil leak,
Rather than risk it I turned around and headed for home, running right back into what was now a fully fledged storm. Seems every time I take it out on a run I get soaked.
So, back home about 2.30pm, engine out and on the bench ready for stripping by about 6.30pm.
The following day, since virtually everything is built into the right hand crankcase I thought there was just a chance that I might be able to pull the left hand side off by 3/4" and slip an O ring onto the ferrule without a major strip, just the front and rear covers and one timing belt.
Hah! Think again!
The oil pump chain connects the two side so that means the clutch has to come off.
Then the real stupidity. There is a main crankcase bolt UNDERNEATH the left hand head! So the head has to come off just to get this one bolt undone. Clever!
While contemplating this I pulled the oil screen and found it clogged with a large amount of a sort of fibrous material and a fair bit of metal.
OK, so lets get it right apart and see what gives. A chance to see why the gearchange is iffy and noisy too.
How embarrassed am I? About this much-
The oil ring round the ferrule.......What ferrule ??????????
Not only forgotten the O, I hadn't even put the ferrule in! Dear God!
The sorry saga doesn't end there either -
In spite of taking pictures and telling folk to change the gear lever centring spring, I hadn't spotted the fact that I had missed out a spacer on the claw shaft, so the shaft could (and did) move, distorting the spring in the process. Don't know what happened to the original spacer, nowhere to be seen, so I used some washers to take up the distance.
(They say confession is good for the soul! Hmmmmmmmm, just makes me realise what an idiot I am!)
In spite of the tensioner fitted to the later models, my primary chain felt very slack whilst still built up when I got a finger to it through the gear window in the right hand case, to the extent that I though the tensioner had jammed down. But no, the tensioner was working properly.
It's a rubbish design. Honda back then just couldn't design chain tensioners for some reason.
This chain I know to have only done about 20k so it should be good. Checking it against the old chain that had done high miles I could find NO difference other than the old one could be bent sideways a little more. The lengths were identical. I even went to the length of fitting the old one in, to find it was
exactly the same amount of slop to the millimeter, measuring 25 mm from low point to high point installed.
I don't know what a new one would measure and besides, a new one non-OEM would be £90 /$135 which on top of the gasket set was just too much with the trip coming up, so the newest one went back in.
Still haven't found where the fibres were from. Speaking to Cyborg he reckons they could be an accumulation from cleaning cloths. Sounds as likely as anything else as there is nothing in the engine to create stuff like that. And no sign of any damage to cause the odd bits of metal either.
So, it's all back together waiting for the gaskets to arrive and the paint to arrive.
Paint?
Yup, most disappointed with the paint I used. Over the course of 200 miles plus some idling set-up time, some of it has become almost gold!
So I've ordered some fresh paint, supposedly recommended by Yamaha. Just hope it lasts better than the this.
). 
Just thought. I found that it wasn't fuel proof after painting it! So rather than strip it I used a fuel proof laquer over the top. I bet that's what's discoloured. 
