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Rocker bearing collapsed

Joined Apr 2008
204 Posts | 0+
Worcestershire England
I was flat out in 5th gear when the bike lost power and a chimps tea party began under my arse. Limped home, dropped the oil and lots of tiny filings on the magnet, a few in the gauze filter and more in the paper filter. Off with the rocker cover and soon evident that the inlet rocker bearing had disintegrated, all the little needle rollers had gone and instead of having 0.1 mm of clearance I now have 5mm. Thanks to this site I knew what had happened straight away having read posts previously about bearing failure.
My concern now is where have all the bits gone and what to replace.
Should I buy a new rocker arm or attempt to replace the bearing?
Should I just flush the engine then fill with oil and do a few very early oil changes or is there anything I should strip and look for?
Is it possible there could be a few complete needle rollers floating around or are they generally ground up?
Any input from those of you who have experienced this would be appreciated.

Cheers folks.
 
I experience the same issue once every 200 engine hours. I'm currently at 400 engine hours and have had to replace my rocker arms due to this issue twice.

The roller bearing going kaput is usually preceded by a slightly different engine noise and finding lots silver hairs on the magnetic drain plug. The magnetic drain plug is a key barometer to internal engine happiness or lack thereof.

I've read that you can rebuild the bearings but since I don't have the know-how or proper tools/press I simply buy new rocker arms.

I think the oil filter and magnetic drain plug capture most of the metallic swarf. After servicing this issue I typically run the engine with fresh oil for 30 minutes and then dump/change the oil/filter again.
 
Freaky, putting in new followers is a ten minute job with a vice to press them in and then a centre punch as per the owners docs.
The followers cost about £19 each, don't know how much more a complete rocker arm would be, no doubt someone here will let you know shortly.
 
dont think the complete rocker arm is that much as i cant recalll going "Oh %&*$" when i replaced them on my 400.

either that or i got a bad memory.
 
Cheers chaps. I'm tempted to go for just the followers as plumbob says, seems an easy job and the rockers are good so seems a shame to bin them. On closer inspection of the bearings I think they may have been breaking up for some time, there are a few flat spots on the outer bearing where it touches the cam lobe, cam seems to have coped ok though with no nasty scores etc. Can't believe it actually ran with 5mm gap on the inlet valves!
 
if you flush the head out, do your repair and then flush the left cover out you should be ok. they have done their damage if they were going to do any on their way down the engine.

there is one place they may have stopped which is a ***** to flush and that is around the cam chain guide on the pulling/power side. there's a little shelf that's a pig to get to....

the exhaust rocker arms are £74 including the dreaded. and that's without the bearing or pads...

regards

Taffy
 
Cheers Taffy, will flush the engine with petrol and remove clutch cover to check they're not lurking in there, let you know how it goes when I reassemble next weekend.
 
Hi all, got the bike back together today. Replaced cam follower bearing on the inlet rocker, straight forward job of pressing the old one out and the new one in. Off with the clutch cover to gather all the needle rollers from inside and flushed out with petrol, luckily no further damage seems to have been done. Set the valves using 1/6 turn method which is much easier to do with the radiator out of the way. Had a little water leak from the pump weep hole which seems to have stopped now. Moved the kick start round one spline whilst putting back together which is an improvement, you get a much better swing. I think this bearing has been on it's way out for some time because the engine sounds so much better, no more rattles which I thought were normal on Bergs, really does sound smooth. Starting is a doddle now, 1st kick every time, even cold. Amazing difference on performance too, smoother, far more responsive low down and generally just faster and nicer to ride. Wasn't too expensive to carry out either, just over Ł50 for bearing, gaskets and oil and a days tinkering from me.
As for what caused the bearing to fail, valve clearances to tight I reckon. When I first joined this site I saw countless references to valve clearances and that they should be checked religiously, it's true gents, go check em!
 
Did I understand you only changed the one bearing that was bad?? Why didnt you do them all? you just got lucky once you may not be again. The problem with ingesting all those little bits is they get into other bearings and .... well to each his own. 150 hours and you need a new cam chain and rocker rollers period
 
Exhaust bearing was fine Bobzilla, cleaned and no play at all. I was going to replace both until I spoke to Dave Clarke Racing who suggested if the other was fine then leave it, appreciate your point though.
 
Don't wanna put the fear of God into ya or anything like that but I'm with Bobzilla on this 1.
I've also had a couple of those self destruct. 1 was bad when I decided to ride it home which really didn't do much for the cam so I went for the take it apart, clean it properly and replace all the bearings.
Those little bits are hardened steel.
Second time I got it when it was noisy and a few bits of metal before total collapse and so just flushed it out.
At the very least I would've replaced the other follower bearing - I worry after 100hrs.
 

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