TWO Broken Rocker Arms. GS700E.

[blowerbike]

i seen the way the conversation was going and wanted to voice my opinion.
i never mentioned Ed or anyone else.
there are plenty good/cheap engines around i'm sure.
84-86 700/83-750.
these engines was not known to eat there self up.
i had a trans back cut in an 83 750 once for a guy(jumps out of 2nd gear).
at that time i added 1150 cams/1100 jet kitted carbs.
and his bike had been beat from day one of its life and several different owners including myself twice.
if the poster of this thread bought an engine cheap enough.. he would have plenty of extra parts if it turned out to have something major wrong with it.
***this is just my opinion and we all know what those are like.***

split the cases and do it right or pick up a used engine for 100-400 bucks.

He could easily waste money on a used engine too unless he has the time to tear it down before buying it and the seller will let them do that. Compression may check out but the used engine could have other problems, bad tranny, crank bearings, any number of things.

I don't think anyone advised him to use a split chain, just mentioned it had been done on several occasions by people on the site. In fact, Ed recommended splitting the cases to do the job right.

That might be what we are looking at here.

Possibly, good thought.

[blowerbike]

Instead of jeering from the cheap seats, please bestow upon us heathen what thy would do and why the course of action suggested so far deserves the .

i said everything in my post.
i have nothing more to add.

[Nessism]

WOW
some more rock solid advice
i will be an observer on this thread and possible catastrophe.
split the cases and do it right or pick up a used engine for 100-400 bucks.

Instead of jeering from the cheap seats, please bestow upon us heathen what thy would do and why the course of action suggested so far deserves the .

[blowerbike]

WOW
some more rock solid advice
i will be an observer on this thread and possible catastrophe.
split the cases and do it right or pick up a used engine for 100-400 bucks.

A few people here have done split chains and I've never seen any reports of catastrophic failure from them.

That might be what we are looking at here.

[Nessism]

I've never worked on that particular type of GS engine but typically the front one pulls straight up and out, rear is attached at the bottom so you need to pull the cylinder to gain access.

No harm, no foul!

Yep, that's today's plan - pull the head and cylinder and have a look down in there. Right after I cut the grass, and help my daughter's dance team car wash...


How do you remove the chain tensioner blade? The front one (exhaust side) seems to just lift out. Is it the same for the rear one?

Thanks,

Kirk

[Nessism]

Okay, maybe "wasting time" was not the best choice of words on my part. Sorry to have offended. What I should have said is to just get busy pulling the head and cylinder at this point. You can replace the cam chain without splitting the cases; you will have to peen over the pins when you join the chain together. Just make sure to do a very careful inspection of the engine and surrounding parts because broken cam chains tend to cause all kinds of destruction.

Well, I haven't WASTED any time at all yet because every step I've done so far would've been required anyway.

This bike was completely new to me with an unknown problem described by the PO.

I've pulled the head cover to have a look and found the broken rockers.

I pulled the carbs to remove the auto cam tensioner.

I pulled the intake cam and found the broken cam chain.

In your opinion, how SHOULD I have proceeded?

My next steps will indeed be to pull the head and cylinder block. If I do pull the engine and split the cases, this would be necessary and I'd rather do all this with the motor in the frame so the semi-stripped engine will be easier to lift out...

[Nessism]

Broken rockers means the valves hit the pistons and a broken cam chain means there could be all kinds of various damage lurking. Sounds like you are wasting time when you should be pulling the head off at minimum and splitting the cases if you want to do the job right.

A few people here have done split chains and I've never seen any reports of catastrophic failure from them.

Well you have to split the cases now to replace the cam chain so now you'll get to see everything right and wrong with it.

That's all I could come up with - piston stuck, cam tries to open valves into stationary piston and valves bend / rocker breaks. Repeat for other rocker.

Otherwise, a piston smacking a valve usually just bends the valve and/or breaks the piston, not breaking the rocker.

We'll see...

Related to this - upon disassembly, how loose should the cam chain be? That is, during this effort, I was able to rotate the intake cam a bit and you can see the slack that developed across the top of the two cam sprockets. This doesn't seem normal to me, but I didn't do any further investigating yet. Actually, it wasn't until I was reviewing the photos that I noticed it and got to thinking....

Not sure if this helps but here is a shot of my 700es with the valve cover off your looks extremely loose.