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Tales from a Motorcycle Saddle. | Norway breakdown - mechanical details. |
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Return to the Norway trip summary
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The Honda CX & GL500 range were plagued with camchain problems, or more accurately, camchain tensioner problems. Mine had the later, self adjusting version which is prone to breaking. One side of the tensioner housing is very thin cast steel and it broke, allowing the untensioned chain to thrash around, breaking one guide, gouging another and even rubbing a channel in the chain guide plate. Symptoms were a slight drop in performance coupled with an increase in fuel consumption at speed, probably because the engine was no longer timed perfectly, and later, a whirring noise at lower revs. Later, a sound developed similar to piston slap. As I left North Cape in Norway, I knew the engine was sick but I had little choice but to continue. One hundred miles later when I switched off, the engine stopped dead, with a clang. The RAC initially refused to return the bike after flying me home (too costly - outside their "policy limits") and offered me £100 for the destruction of it. However, a stiff letter to the MD changed their minds. On dropping the engine and removing the rear cover the problem was obvious. The slack chain had ridden over the crankshaft sprocket teeth and was literally jammed on the peak of the teeth. Freeing it allowed the engine to revolve, so I hoped no other damage was done. |
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What I learnt about the rebuild.
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New chain, tensioner, oil seals including fitting of the water pump mechanical seal, gaskets, and a rewound rotor came to £300 from a Honda dealer. The engine can be removed and refitted by one person and a trolley jack. A hoist was used to lift and lower from a portable workbench. Once on the bench, tip the engine forward to prevent undrained oil from seeping out once the rear cover is removed. If a 27mm box spanner is unobtainable use a 27mm diesel injector deep socket to remove the camshaft sprocket mounting nut. |
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| The CX500 &
GL500 Owners Club of Sweden (http://cx500.gobinet.se/)
has a superb bulletin board. The help I received from other owners all
around the world when I could not get the bike to go after the rebuild was
immense (ignition timing problems). Other help is available at: http://cxboard.netfirms.com/index.html http://www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cx500/ |
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This is the offending part. Note how thin the casing is on the right. As the body broke it allowed the spring and ball to float around, thus no longer applying any pressure on the cam chain. |
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