Jim's 1988 VTR250 Interceptor

Have to make that paint scheme pristine! Here is a little musical soundtrack that might fit....

 

you could try washing oil or crud out of the tensioner, then refilling as illustrated in the FSM. i may be wrong but i dont think anything can be done to fixit unless theres a spring inside that could be shimmed up.

can you find a new one ?

 

I am all over it NCB!

 

Yeah, not sure a used one will be much better. I just got run out of town by that stupid Hurricane so not sure when we will go back.

 

Stay Safe Jim !

 

Thanks, Stray! We were about due for one. Last really big one was in 2017.

 

check in when ur safe, jim

 

Thanks for asking!

Still no power and We had to abandon the house after 2 nights of 88F temperatures, And Neighbor's generator keeping us up all night.

Sitting in a Hotel about 75 miles away with the miracle of Air Conditioning!

I did manage to get the tensioner out! I will write that up tomorrow.

 

Power back on! YAY!!!!!!

 

temporarily, sure, but another hurricane will begin forming soon or a chemical spill or.........

 

Alright, I got the tensioner for the rear cylinder out and took a look at it. It has a spring loaded piston that loads the cam chain slipper.

When I removed it and tried to move the lever arm it was stuck in the fully extended position. This would make the cam chain as tight as it could get.

I finally got it to move after I dumped some of the oil out of it. I am now wondering if the tensioner is bad or not??? I refilled it with oil and pumped it back up and it is really hard to move. The manual said that if you move the lever arm rapidly the lever should NOT move. I guess that the oil has to travel through an orifice that will allow the lever piston to only move so fast?




Below is the tensioner with the slipper removed. It moves very freely now that I drained the oil out of it. Kind of hard to see how it works unless I could post a video...never tried.

As a back up plan I ordered a 89 model tensioner off EbAy which appears to be backwards compatible with the 88 model I have. The current Honda parts list shows that the 89 model tensioner superseded the 88 model. As @Captain 80s has said, lots of changes from 88 to 89.

 

the cams do not need to be knackered for the failure to occur on the followers. You will not see the wear divot while the cam is in place. Try removing the followers on the rear cylinders and have a close look.

 

a shocking photo indeed, GBH done there, not suitable for some viewers.

 

I checked this out and the are in perfect shape....cams are already out so no problem checking that out.

 

Cam Chain Tensioners...

I bought front and rear used ones off an 89 model and there does not appear to be a lot of difference between the 89 and 88 models

The parts list definitely shows (2) or more P/N's that were avaialable and they all supersede to the same P/N on all models 1988-90.

It may be the drilling for the tensioner piston orifice is different on the 89 model. I did notice that the pins that hold the slippers on the tensioner body have a much larger head on the 89. Not sure if Honda had some slippers let go and changed the design?

 

Well Crap........I put the rear tensioner in and started the bike. Same noise.

Looks like the engine is going to come out, I think I have "early onset" rod knock!

Drained the oil and I don't see much in the way of metal fragments. *maybe* some very tiny flakes??

This is weird as I was expecting much more damage and metal if it truly is a bad rod bearing.

 

Two bad tensioners failing and allowing the same noise... While highly improbable, not impossible.

Try the other used tensioner?

I know you're gonna tear it down.

 

It's crazy but the engine did sound a bit quieter with the new tensioner installed.

I feel I should try the other tensioner but figured out a new plan. I have to pull the exhaust off anyway and once it is off the oil pan is really easy to remove.

I may be able to see a lot more with the pan off. I strained the drained oil through a blue shop towel and there is no smoking gun of metal shards.

I am letting the oil settle in a clear pan so I can look at it in the morning and see if metal is in it.

This is really puzzling.

 

Oil pan is right there to remove with the exhaust pulled off. Nice.

 

You can see some REALLY microscopic metal flakes , I think???