Help... $$$$ repair....collective opinions needed...

Greetings Collective Brain Trust:

I rec'd a call today from my dealer. A 'tapping' sound in my '04 VFR w/ 12k miles on it is looking spendy.
They put 5 hrs into the search and have found none of the usual suspects, the auto chain cam tensioner is fine they say and nothing else is coming up wrong. the 'tap' continues.
The head wrench who is very seasoned and rides the same machine believes as do others there, and myself, that this is a broken valve spring in the left front cylinder.
I'm looking at 2 days labor to pull the motor out of her and open her up, repair and put her back in. They are guessing, out the door, between $1500 and $2000... assuming it's only the valve spring.
They also are telling me that I could probably ride like this for a 'very long time' without a problem, 'ride it till she blows up' it will probably take a long time, then spend the money when you must....'
While i'm ok with the thought of this, the tapping is hard to take, it's not the fine sounding machine i bought. I could pay the $350 and just ride on... performance is unaffected.

I'm a motorhead, and have built many machines, but honestly this one's over my head combined with not having any spare time...

Any thoughts, lucid wisdom out there would be appreciated...
can't promise to heed any of it, but i'm trying to decided how to proceed.

Thanks in advance for writing...

J~
Chattanooga TN

 

engine removal is probably not necessary just to inspect valve springs.... to replace springs pull the cylinder head only.

Was it tapping when you bought it?
When did tapping start?
Ever run it low on oil??
You do alot of running near redline??

 

hmm...
i'm being told the engine must come out to pull the cylinder head...
i admit i don't know enough to argue this point....
welcome your input!

Was not tapping when purchased. this is a new sound, started approx. 300 miles ago.
Bike is meticulously maintained, has never run low on oil.
Seldom run hard enough to get near redline, can recall only one time when limiter kicked in. I ride pretty fast, but conservatively.

again, input welcome... and thanks!

 

OK, I know I'm probably about to start some controversy here, but, thats just the kinda guy I am....:thumbsup:

Go to Autozone, etc, and get a quart can of Seafoam. Read the instructions very carefully on the back. Then apply the recommended amount to your crankcase, ride it for about 50 miles, then come home and change your oil while the motor is still warm.

I used to ride a Shadow Sabre, and some folks had a problem we all named 'the Sabre tick'. Several people reported ending the tick after the use of seafoam as I described above. Reportedly, the tick was caused by some of the oil ports in the head getting a little clogged up, which resulted in not enough oil getting up to the valves/camshaft.

Good Luck, I hope that fixes it.

 

My '04 has almost 40K miles on it now. Started making a light ticking sound near the front around 31K miles. When I had the 32K service, I told them about the ticking and they checked everything during the service. They did not find anything, their thought was a possible exhaust leak on one of the front headers. I've delt with the noise the last 8K miles and don't notice it unless at idle and paying attention. Not a loud sound.

Is it a light sound, or very noticeable? I've never had a valve spring break on a overhead cam engine, so not sure what to expect. My main concern would be if it is a broken spring, the valve could come in contact with the piston, if not being pulled closed.... Then you would have to pull the motor for sure. If possible, I would get a second opinion, just for peace of mind.

Good luck with your decision.

 

i had actually considered the seafoam idea...
haven't ruled it out...

the second opinion idea appeals to me except that i've got $350 in it at this point. which will be part of the out the door price. Gonna spend another few hundred for a second opinion i fear....

The tapping is strange so here goes:

No tap till bike is warm. once warm, can come and go.
Tap increases/decreases w/ RPM.
It's not too loud, can hear it easily at idle, but not at speed or much above idle.
matters not if in neutral or in gear.
with a mechanics stethascope sounds very mechanical.

now here's the really strange part:
When the bike is standing straight up, it's tapping. lean the bike hard to the left side and she goes quiet. stand her back up and after 1-2 seconds, she starts tapping again.

bizarro VFR...

 

Cant they just take off the front valve cover and visually inspect the valve springs?

What oil do you use? If you use a full synthetic try using a semi synthetic 10W40 or mineral.

I'm going off synthetics, engine is noisier IMO.

 

What does it do when you lean it hard right?

 

Next time I ride my bike, I will pay more attention to the tapping sound. See when it does it or not. I know mine does not change with rpm.I can not hear it much above idle. I have to take my bike in for the wiring harness recall, I was going to have it checked out again then.

 

+1 to what MD said - You can definitely get the valve covers off with out pulling the motor. The service manual says you can even pull the front head with the motor in the bike. I'd pay what you owe and get my bike back then do some checking on my own. Good Luck!

Action

 

A broken valve spring? Sounds like a wild guess to me.

Your description sure sounds alot like cam chain tensioner. My experience with them is you normally can't tell there's anything wrong with them by inspection. You just replace 'em and see if the noise goes away. BTW...I did an 04 just like yours last summer that had VERY similar symptoms and it WAS the tensioners. As I recall it had about 20K miles. I would think a 'seasoned' tech would be on to that though.

When you lean your bike various and assorted gears CAN slide around. It sounds like a clue but I'm not sure to what. In the mid 80's I used to see a lot of problems with bent tran shift forks in V4's. One way to verify (besides the obvious popping out of gear and associated noise) was to lean the bike way to the side...the gear held by the bent shift fork would slide enough to cause interference with another and you could audibly hear it.

 

Someguy,

I have nothing valuable to offer here, but I also ride a 6th gen and also live in Chattanooga. Just thought I would say hello!

 

clearly the CCT's is the place to start.
thank you.


Honda is saying that in the last year or two, Honda has improved their automatic CCT and it should probably be OK to use this, but agrees that most folks replace with aftermarket, manual adjuster.

I'm OK with either, they seem to price out about the same w/ Hondas running about $75 each (need two)
They say they mostly aftermarket w/ the APE, which seems to be the what most here run.

Went to the APE website and don't see one for the VFR,

any advice on Honda vs. APE vs another is great, and part numbers and approx. price if you know it.

I did have them pull the valve covers off, no broken springs or busted bits found in the top end...

Keeping my fingers crossed at this point...
I appreciate everyone's thoughts...
you guys rock.

 

This may have nothing to do with your noise, but it's very similar so here goes. Back when I worked for our local Honda shop, we had an F4i that had a similar problem but would only make a ticking noise if you leaned it I think to the right(not sure if it was right or left as this was many years ago). After much inspection by our head tech. we were at a loss. A Honda rep had to come down and eventually discovered that the cam chain guide was loose where it bolted to the case and when the bike was leaned it would rattle. It was a problem in the manufacturing process when they molded that particular run of guides. After replacement the problem was cured. Like I said, I don't know if this helps at all, but if the tensioners are ok it's another possibility that one of the guides is causing the noise, but doubtful.

 

so the saga continues, should have her back soon...
still uncertain.

A dude shared this with me:

click to hear my CCT
or:
YouTube - 2003 VFR CCT clunk

and though the link does not, stated in a PM to me that it was indeed the CCT.

 

I think the main clue is the intermittent nature of the sound...coming and going at idle. I've observed that first hand.

Somebody mentioned in another post the problem being with the spring in the tensioners...I think that's wrong. The spring takes up the slack...but once that's done the tensioners are supposed to 'lock' in that spot and not be able to back off. The 'locking mechanism' is the part that's failing. The 'coming and going' you are hearing is the tensioner backing off, then taking up the slack as it's supposed to.

J makes an interesting post about an F4 guide problem...in association with noises coming and going when the bike is leaned. If that weirdness continues with your bike, Someguy, It may not be a bad idea to open up the engine sidecovers and inspect fasteners and check for marking or abnormal wear on the covers and various parts. The only parts you'd need would be a couple gaskets.

 

I doubt your valve spring fixs itself ..its either broke or not and then it will stay broke..besides..does it not miss somewhere ? it should do something funny if the valve wont close, like run poor? Not hard to check anyway.And why can they not change it on the bike? I did one on a old v4 magna way back with the typical air fitting ,air hold closed the valve and I made a pry gizmo that i used to compress the spring and get the keeper off..all on the bike. I doubt tho thats your problem if its intermittent. good luck either way!

 

Lessons Learned/AAR

The saga is over, i hope for good.
the bleeding has stopped.

I picked up the bike today.
this took a very long time and was very painful.
Thought i'd share with you all, and for what it's worth, maybe someone can learn something.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate all the feedback and advice. from a distance, most of you will probably note that i screwed up, and i probably did.
I have an incredibly demanding job that allows me little time to 'fix' things myself. I am very savvy with a set of wrenches and have built and 'wrenched' many machines/bikes/cars/aircraft you name it...

You may recall that i dropped the scoot off and the first call i rec'd, the dealer already had 5 hours into it, was sure the CCT's were fine and could find nothing wrong. They had the front head off and all the valves exposed. I went and saw the carnage.
At this point they were suggesting I pull the engine completely out, looking for the mystery sound. "Possibly $2000+" (now it's clear to me that figure was grossly underestimated)

I declined and asked them to stop with the the teardown, check the oil for any metal, and call me. No metal. I instructed them to them to replace the CCT's and put her back together. (which is what I verbally asked for when I dropped her off, but did not write on the service request... my very big mistake) I visually/manually inspected the valves/springs and shims that were lying on the bench. I didn't like the look of two of the lifter tensionser, and had them replaced. The 16k Valve Job was done and she was put back together. In the process, the Tech noted the Vtech exhaust valve coupler was sticking. He pulled this cleaned it and noted some type of debri/carbon? and it now seemed to work fine. While i understand the principle function of the part and it's operation, I did not visually see this part, and i'm told it's mostly rocket science, and there's very little information on it out there, so i cannot comment.
I got freshly adjusted valves, fresh oil, a K&N airfilter, a new set of rear brake pads, couple of new gaskets, and two new CCT's. (I have all the old parts that were removed)

Bike runs/sounds great, no noise.

The repair invoice was breathtaking. I spoke with the service manager, and he indicated to me that he understood how this was frustrating, and that he knew this was a lot of money. He showed me the hours breakdown from the tech. They had probably over 40 hours at $75/hr looking for the problem. He said he was going to 'eat' what he could of it, and was able to get my chargable hours down to 15 hrs. He stated he is going to eat over $1800 on this...

Out the door, I was $1601.45.

I know a lot of you will have opinions about this, and i encourage you to share them... good and bad.
My mistake, as I see it, was not specifying in writing, "replace the CCT's" nothing more. and then see if that fixed it. if not, we proceed with something else. Some will say, my mistake was going to the dealer in the first place. Maybe I agree that the mistake was 'this' dealer. I feel like they did a lot of experimenting here... I think there are some good dealers out there. I don't know if it's was the CCT or the exhaust valve coupler, and i'm unable to pull the bullshit flag on the dealer at this point... so it is what it is. The other thing is, i'll not ID the dealer here... i cannot prove they screwed me on purpose, but i would be very explicit in writing before i ever took something there again... (which i will not by the way)

Part of the problem/good thing here, is that VFR's are such amazing machines, and they rarely break. Hence, few mechanics out there, ever get any time on these machines outside of VFR tech school...

At any rate, I like to think that i am perhaps wiser. I will now 'make' the time to fix stuff myself...It's something i loved doing once, and was good at it. guess i should find my roots.
I am certainly much poorer. My wife asked me if I would be able to 'live in it' when i get it back... i didn't laugh. asked her if she could live in all her shoes? nuff said.

Thanks again all...

and by the way, don't know if dealers read these forums, suspect some do, mine knows how to reach me if they have any questions...

hard Lesson learned.