Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Triumph bulletin board Have I a problem? T100R Camwheels

I reassemble the engine of my T100R Daytona ´69.
I changed the camshaft bushes in the housing and reamed them with a special tool in line.
Crankshaft rotates excellent the camshafts too. Nothing wrong.
When I assembled the camwheels the exhaust cam didn´t rotate free. I used the Triumph special tool to get the camwheel onto the camshaft. The camshaft rotates 3/4 and then it was hard to rotate by hand. It sounded as the camwheel rub somewhere.
Then I thought the camwheel is not 100% square on the shaft and with an aluminium mallet I hammered the camwheel while I rotated it by hand.
After that it was far better. No rubbing but even that it is easily to rotate by hand there is one position where it needs more force to rotate. I didn`t torque the camwheel nuts yet. The camshaft has VERY little sideplay.
What to do now? Any ideas?
Or will it be better when I torqued the camwheel nuts down?
Thank you, Martin

Many of the aftermarket replacement timing side camshaft bushings are too long. The length of the bushing must be between .005" and .008" shorter than the camshaft bearing surface. This allows the cam to float side to side .005" to .008".

You can visually check this before you install the cam wheels. Look at the point where the camshaft comes through the bushing. You should be able to see the cam extend past the bushing by the above amounts. If it is flush, or below the edge of the bushing, when you tighten up the cam wheel nut the cam will not be able to be turned.
John

Boy this was a senior moment... Might have read 500, but my brain was thinking 650... We have had so much trouble getting proper 650 timing side camshaft bushings that all my brain was thinking was this is his problem. Anyone replacing their 650/750 twin cam bushings beware.

Hey John

Thank you for your reply. I am sure you are right in the case of a 650. But the 500 has no bushing in TS cases, the camshaft runs in the aluminium.

Thank you, Martin

Martin (bollocks on TOL?)
I would take the camwheel and thrust plate off again and examine them closely. Then I would probably dress them both carefully on a sheet of 400-600 wet-and-dry on a flat surface (i.e glass) and look for high spots.

Hth,
Stein Roger aka tri-man

Hello!
Problem solved.
One of the most important things I have learned on my way to become a proper Triumph mechanic was:
Whenever you have a problem you cannot understand, drink a beer, go to bed and sleep. Try it again next day.

@Stein: Yes, bollock without "s" on TOL. Someday I will change it but its my forum nickname in few more forums. A friend of me called me because of my Bollock Brothers LPs... Today I know better what it means ;-)

Back to topic.
Yesterday I cleaned all camwheels and the thrust plate like you mentioned. With very fine paper.
Today I tourqued the nut down and it was worse so I went back and measured the Thrust Plate after dismantling. I have a few of them here and found out that the Thrust Plate was near 1/10 mm thinner than the others.
I assembled an other one and that´s it... The cam rotates free and I have enough sideplay.

Sometimes it is easy. But didn´t think about measuring before because all the parts came out of this engine. I cannot remember if the cam rotated free or not before. There where no signs of abnormal use so I didn´t think I will find a problem there.

Hi Lincoln Green, happy to see you sorted it out. But I can't see how the thrust plate was too thin...? I would have thought the other way around, as the plate sits between the cam journal and the camwheel?

Hope to see you at GTR some time now that I've got an old triple again!

...without "s", I'll keep that in mind :-) :bigt