New parts doesn't always mean 'new'

[mxboy96]

Hey guys. Thought I'd tell my own experience for your benefit and to laugh at it now that's it's 'corrected' and done, haha. I ended up making a winter project on my '05 to replaced the exhaust valve guides and valves, which you know are all too common causing the annoying ticking on gen 1's, and just check the head over and rebuild it. So I pulled the head, cleaned it up, replaced the guides, seals, ex. valves, cut all the seats fresh and buttoned it back up enough to run the machine. Crossed my fingers, said a little prayer(this is a big job compared to a single cylinder ya know), and fired it up to find it was knocking now and sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders or something. After admitting defeat and doing some more diag. work, come to find #3 has no compression. Wonderful. Tear it back down and inspect. Come to find both ex. valves are bent....bad. I assumed I goofed something up. To make a long story short, I ruled out that I did anything in the end because the valve clearance was the same before and after I fired the engine. Bingo! They were bent before I ever started it. But how? I was super careful with everything, triple checked cam timing before and after, never dropped them or anything of the sort. Just my random one in a million luck that two out of the 8 brand new valves I purchased were bent, and just so happened to get installed in the same cylinder. Luckily Yamaha was nice enough to except the damage claim from our dealership, and two new 'straight' valves later and another head gasket and bolts it purrs like kitten. A quite, no ticking kitten thank you. So just because parts are new, don't just assume. I did and paid for it. Check them. Thank you for taking the time to read

 

[Auburn]

Good to hear everything worked out. Did you happen to take pictures of the process that you could share with everyone?

 

[BkerChuck]

Dealership I work for had a similar experience several years back with Triumph. There was a recall on ignition coils and they actually sent out defective coils to replace the already defective coils! Dealership had several techs pulling out their hair trying to chase that one down,

 

[Fred W]

Glad you got it sorted out. But your story prompts a couple of questions:

Was your engine ticking or otherwise showing valve guide problems (like oil in the exhaust header) before you decided to perform this maintenance?

How many miles did you have on it?

Valve problems are not really all that common, even on early 1st gens. Some had them, others run a lot of miles with no problems at all. The latter seems to be far more common. The hype about 1st gen tickers, most of which were fixed by Yamaha, is a bit over-exaggerated, IMO.

 

[JamesW]

Can mess with your mind. Tail lite out on car, new bulb, still no light, tracing wires after trying foil in socket, no lite. Passing friend suggested new bulb bad, transposed other working bulb to check, viola.

 

[luvtoride]

Where do you get the info that tickers were over-exaggerated? I personally know of several ticking bikes...at least 4. including my own which was fixed on Yamaha's dime.

And to stay on topic... glad the OP has things sorted out.

 

[Fred W]

The guy just replaced all of his valves due to the possibility of it becoming a ticker. How is this discussion not precisely on target?

The over exaggerated part that I was referring to is the numbers/percentages that were/are affected. While you may know of 4 that were tickers I'm sure I could easily come up with more than twice that many that were not. In fact, there is an old poll on this very forum that shows that tickers are in the minority, though a number of 1st gen owners read about it and then start imagining it is ticking.

Of course, if you do develop the problem, there is nothing exaggerated about how much of a bummer it is. Getting it fixed on Yamaha's dime is definitely something to pursue, but I'm not sure they'd be likely to do that on a 10+ year old bike. In any case, I certainly would not have gone through all of that effort just for the unlikely possibility that it might develop.

 

[luvtoride]

My bike was ticking shortly after I purchased it... I noticed it by 9,000 miles or so. Agreed a ten year old bike probably wouldn't develop it now unless the bike has really low mileage... which I guess is possible. Or it's had the issue for awhile & he just decided to fix it now. Did the OP say?

While the # of bikes with the affliction are in the minority... there are still quite a few bikes that developed the issue. There are probably still bikes with premature valve guide wear out there & the owners don't know it. There are a lot of owners that aren't on this board. I could understand why you'd consider a few bikes having issues making the affliction an over-exaggeration. It was quite a bit more than that, though.

It really doesn't matter, anyway. I guess I'm just writing **** up here to write **** up here. Is it time to go home, yet?

 

[radiummadman]

when I grow up I want to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, just like Fred W.

 

[wheatonFJR]

when I grow up I want to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, just like Fred W.

You don't have to know everything about everything...just have those guys for drankin buddies..

 

[Bounce]

when I grow up I want to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, just like Fred W.

You don't have to know everything about everything...just have those guys for drankin buddies..

in this case, he's spot on. while ticking did happen it wasn't "common". it was well documented here to the point that Yamaha acknowledged it and made good with most owners. even at "under 3%" that's "under 3%" more than we'd all like to see.

 

[Fred W]

when I grow up I want to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, just like Fred W.

When you grow up, you'll know how to do this:

 

[luvtoride]

Bounce, is that 3% of folks on this board or is this nunber from Mama Yama? Where did the over-exagerration come into play? I don't see it as over-exaggeration. This was & is a real issue.

 

[Bustanut joker]

I would think 3% is a good representation of the percentage of all.. And to be honest, a 3% failure ratio isn't too bad.

 

[Bounce]

"~3%" is overall. It doesn't mean it's not a real issue. It does mean tearing into a motor that isn't ticking is, "~97%" of the time, a waste of time and money.

 

[Chuck35]

Those new bent vavles should have been evident when lapping them in

 

[mxboy96]

No I didn't take any pictures. Didn't think anyone would be interested, haha. Yes, it was a ticker. Probably the reason the previous owner traded it in when he found out it would cost half what the bikes worth to fix it. And no, it may not have happened to all 1st gens, but it occurred enough to where Yamaha techline knew exactly what I was talking about and told me the issue right off the bat. If I wasn't a Yamaha tech myself and got a wicked discount on parts, I wouldn't have attempted it because of the cost of parts let alone if I had to pay for labor. Yamaha just recently raised the price on 'alot' of their parts as well. And yes Chuck35, that should have been evident, but I used one of the 'unbent' brand new valves to check my contact patch on all the seats(all brand new valves are the same anyway) and used Neway seat cutters that don't require lapping. And don't tell me they do, I've contacted the company themselves to get the four-one-one on proper use.

 

[HotRodZilla]

No I didn't take any pictures. Didn't think anyone would be interested, haha. Yes, it was a ticker. Probably the reason the previous owner traded it in when he found out it would cost half what the bikes worth to fix it. And no, it may not have happened to all 1st gens, but it occurred enough to where Yamaha techline knew exactly what I was talking about and told me the issue right off the bat. If I wasn't a Yamaha tech myself and got a wicked discount on parts, I wouldn't have attempted it because of the cost of parts let alone if I had to pay for labor. Yamaha just recently raised the price on 'alot' of their parts as well. And yes Chuck35, that should have been evident, but I used one of the 'unbent' brand new valves to check my contact patch on all the seats(all brand new valves are the same anyway) and used Neway seat cutters that don't require lapping. And don't tell me they do, I've contacted the company themselves to get the four-one-one on proper use.

I love it when the guy everyone is pompously trying to school turns around and schools them back. Can't help but giggle. Nice job mxboy!

 

[Fred W]

I certainly wasn't trying to "school" anyone. I merely asked if he had any symptoms of it being a ticker, which he had not mentioned in his OP. He now says that he did have the ticker symptoms, though still hasn't said what they were. And if he in turn schooled me, then I am just too dumb to see it.

Overall, it's just good that mxboy was able (and technically capable!) of saving that engine. Good job.