Need help/advice big time on 1st gen vf500f tappet screws

there is a used set of cases available on ebay RIGHT NOW! LINK --> engine cases for 86 vf500

sorry, i thought you had an 86.... There are a couple of items posted for the 85's right now too.

85 cases

 

Both my son and I really do appreciate you're input with the ebay link and I checked another one out too as well but my son is just burnt out with all the surprises this bike is throwing at us. Just this spring it's had new tires, new brake rotors and pads and new rear mono shock and it's getting to the point he feels he's just throwing money at it and just wants to cut his losses now. Lesson to be learned here for anyone following this thread ..... MAKE SURE LASH ADJ JAM NUTS ARE TIGHT WHEN YOU SET YOUR VALVE LASH!!

 

I understand completely. I nearly threw in the towel on mine this weekend. My countershaft bearing went out so the entire engine is coming apart... If I didn't have so little into the bike now I wouldn't have fixed it.

 

I'm a bit late to the party here, but my VF500 suffer a similar fate with dropping a cam cap dowel into the oil pan without realizing it. Mine broke the case as well, taking out part of the boss where the oil pressure is fed into, the part where you see the o-ring in the pic a few posts above. I got "creative" and used some JB-weld to put it back together and it's holding up, but it's not quite good enough. The oil pressure is dropping at idle, enough that the light will flicker on if it idles low enough. This added to an engine that already has oiling issues by design, and I know it won't last. I believe I have a bearing that is suffering from this, and is making noise, so I might be interested in the crank, rods, pistons and bearings if your's are still ok. I have a good set of engine cases, and I had gone through the heads not long ago, putting the best valves out of the 2 engine I have in it to get it going for a while.

 

It's an absolute shame because it was a sweet running bike and if it weren't for the fact that it's such a PITA to find parts for, I might have tried getting another set of engine cases. Another thing is that we never really figured out why the tappet adj screws came out in the first place because the jam nuts were tight. My son had set lash on this engine before with no problems at all so our procedure of how he adjusted or tightened them couldn't have been the reason. With that said, if I were to have spent the effort to tear it all apart and put it all back together with another set of cases only to have it fail again because we never figured out why it failed in the first place, there wouldn't be a bike left to part out because I would've nabbed my 12 gauge, bought a case of deer slugs and blown the bike into little pieces.