Hi,
Well interesting developments. First - I am getting really good at taking apart the bike and getting the valve cover off. It took me about 1/2 hour yesterday (The seat and tank were already off.)
I removed the suspect camshaft cap #2 (removing both #1 and #2) and inspected. Nothing, Nada. No metal in the camshaft area, no odd wear on the camshaft, no odd wear on the bearings on either #1 or #2, everything seated as it should be. The pins in Cam Cap 2 looked fine. Cam bearings aligned in the bearing seats just fine, shims all in place, oil on the bearing and the lobes so no dryness. In short everything looked fine.
This time when progressively tightening down the cap bolts I started on the #2 cap instead of the #1 cap. I figured that I would allow alignement of the #2 cap to camshaft to take a little preference over the #1 as they snugged down (since there were more Time Serts in #2.)
I did the valve measurements. All of the intakes were fine. A couple of the exhaust valves needed .06 larger shims- I used the cable tie technique to remove and install one that I had and I have one valve open now to slip a shim into when I get the proper size shim tomorrow.
So the tinking and the growling- this is my current thinking on that. I wrecked the gasket on the reed valve above the intake cam tower #2. I wanted to put the bike together so I used the black gasket goo to seal the reed against the valve head. However the thickness is not the same so I am sure there is play between the valve reed assembly and it's cover (called a fitting - the thing with the fitting for the rubber tube on it.)
The reed assembly could be bouncing around in there (the tinking) and the poor seal could be sucking air - vibrating the reed assembly (the growling.)
This would be amazing, incredible. The fact that I didn't find anything is a very good sign but it doesn't mean for certain that there isn't a problem, however I am a whole lot more optimistic going from probable disaster to possible motorcycle nirvana.
I wish I could pick up a reed gasket tomorrow. I will have to order one. In the meantime I will try putting something between the reed assemebly and the fixture to keep it from virbrating. We shall see.
The cable tie trick is awesome.
Kirk
Steve what did you mean about the idler sprocket- I didn't wind up doing the drill thing- but I would have done it with the cam chain tensioner spring in place (I don't think my bike had an idler sprocket.)