celebrate, celebrate,,,dance to the music

[Idaho]

The deed is done. New cam chain extenders are installed. 2007 Nomad with almost 40,000 miles on the fun meter. The engine was very NOISY. I bought the extenders from Joe (Chuckster) about six months ago. Then I ordered new gaskets. And took my time to get a 5mm hex wrench with a ball end on it. Get the picture? I was in NO hurry. Printed off the instructions from Gadgets page and read them 5 or six times. Seemed confusing to me.

Well, spring is sort of in the air and I want the bike to be ready for riding season so I decided that today was the day. I started out by sweeping out the garage and took the Nomad for a short spin into town to warm up the engine. Then I rolled it into the garage and started on the back cylinder. I decided to do it with the exhaust pipe still connected. It worked.

I gotta tell you, once you get the little beast out and start to mess with it it's pretty obvious how it works. Don't be afraid of that part of the job.

The only vise that I have is a cheap drill press vise that I bought from Harbor Freight. That worked great to hold the old extender tight enough for me to use a hacksaw to spit the old ring. Never even marked the shaft underneath. Joes extender replacements fit on perfectly. I put a drop of red loctite in the cup and pushed it into place then used a paper towel to carefully clean up the overflow as it oozed out from under the cup. I let it set up for a few minutes and assembled the spring and bearing retaining ring in the other end. It all went together easilly and when I backed out the small retaining screw the unit inside snapped into place like it was supposed too.

The front one was a bit more of a challenge. I still have a stock intake complete with a crossover tube. That POC will go one of these days when I can get Chucksters intake kit. In the meantime I had to deal with it. That meant completely loosening the intake plates on both sides of the bike. Beware, there are four small square nuts sitting in slots in the end of the crossover tube that WILL fall out onto the floor. Watch for them.

Oh, on my left side intake the 8mm bracket bolts would not come out easilly. Rolled off the edges with a 12 pt socket on the front one so I drove to town to get a nice six point 8mm socket. The rear bolt came out, the front one just rolled off the shoulders again. I'm trying not to panic at this point because I needed to get the last extender done and I needed to get my intake back together. I grabbed the bracket that the offending bolt was holding down and bent it out a little ways and twisted it and lo and behold the bolt with the rounded head turned. I put the six pt socket back on it and it backed out without any problem. Luckilly I found two small bolts to replace the damaged ones with so I was happy.

I figured out that I was not able to remove the inside screw because the cap on the extender body was in the way of the hex key shaft and prevented me from turning the screw. So I took the cap off and pulled out the springs and laid those pieces on the workbench. Then I was able to remove the rear screw and then the front one. Getting the extender body out with the crossover tube in the way was a challenge. I found that by rotating the extender body I was able to find a spot where it practically fell out.

I reassembled it without the cap and spring installed so that I could get the back screw in and tight. It worked and I was able to get the cap screwed back on without too much trouble. Keep in mind that I had to compress the spring inside under the cap and turn the cap until it threaded onto the extender body.

All in all it was not too bad of a job. A little time consuming.

When I hit the starter button it was amazing to me how quiet the engine is now. My back extender was all the way bottomed out and the front only had a few clicks left. This made a lot of difference. Glad that I finally got it done.