If you haven't been following my folly- when doing a valve adjustment check I discovered I had previously stripped a bunch of threads out of the camshaft tower cap bolt holes (7 to be precise) and needed to use "Time Serts" to re-build the bolt hole. Several of the stripped bolt holes included holes that also had alignment pins- I had to ream these out a bit to accommodate the "Time Sert" insets.
The heads that hold the lower camshafts bearings and the camshaft tower caps the hold the uppers are milled together at the factory for alignment accuracy, so I was highly concerned about wether my "time serts" and especially reaming the alignment pin holes on the head would cause a problem with the camshaft and bearing alignment.
Today, I started up the bike, a Kawasaki 2005 KZ1000P, CHP Motorcycle. The bike started right up and the engine actually sounded better than it has ever sounded. After some careful listening I noticed a bit of a "tapping" sound - I thought at first - not a problem just a valve with a little extra valve spacing - that's even preferred in some circles. I decided to use a 1/4 inch tube as a stethoscope and listen around.
Listening through the valve cover over on # 3 and 4 exhaust camshaft tower there is a pronounced tinking and tapping and a very unsettling growling. Listening at the other cam towers - they sound smooth and quiet. My prognosis is that the alignment on the exhaust cam and bearings did not make it through my "Time Sert" process (specifically #4.) It could be one that one of the bearings popped out as I was tightening (I checked them twice before I bolted the cam tower caps down) but I doubt it.
It was a beautiful day here, I would have loved to have gone for a ride. Instead, I will need to pull things apart and see what is going on. If it turns out a bearing didn't pop out then the entire head on my bike may be toast and I will need to replace it. I can't image that there is anything I can do to put things back in alignment.
The scope of my upcoming bike work my have just increased dramatically.
I hope all of you had a better day than that!
Kirk