01 Dec 23, 03:07 am

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1
You might investigate this:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwHpShGXCRfdRHVMjwPBqZtrhR

I did not do this mod. Too late for me, went another direction.
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I know enough to be dangerous. But vertical scratches usually indicate dirt entering the combustion chamber. I would ask if this bike used aftermarket filters or if the owner ever found a filter edge misalignment on a routine maintenance? God help us all if its a K&N air filter!
The good news is it could just be worn out rings. I don't know what "unobtanium" the liners are made of. But if it's harder than the pistons, we need accurate and thorough measurements of clearances including ring lands as well as skirt & end gap. Better carefully check intake guide to stem clearances too. Dirt gets to them too.
From what I see in the pic's, oil's not coming down the intake guides. But oil is going out the exhaust.
Captain Obvious says its getting past rings. Lets pull it apart and find some measuring tools.
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You should've pulled the liners right out here & then JM - 15 seconds for each one and that would've have told the whole story. 

Anyhow, regarding the head & valves - you're getting 'too deep and meaning full' and over doing the matter, if I may be so blunt.  Take the head, valves, springs, caps, collets, etc and new valve stem seal to a cyl head recon shop to do the reassemble & test job for much less than you're worrying about.

Ethanol makes a mess on the valves - well documented by Hamlin.

In the mean time -  :031:
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Hey Jav, thanks for the update. I was wondering if you'd made progress. I think we have to wait for the liners to be pulled to really know what gives. The vertical scoring is certainly not good news but don't rule out a simple case of broken rings rather than pistons. I've had rings fail and break up due to one cycle of overheating and subsequent softening. I don't know that you have to give up on the valves and seats if the source of the metal is from a bad piston. If the guides and valves are okay, they may have a lot of life in them yet, once lapped in and cleaned up, with new stem seals. I wish Hamlin would chime in and comment at this point but probably would also want to wait and see the piston and ring integrity too. Don't get too despondent yet, it's till a fine project and entertaining us mightily. We could do a crowd funding sally to help if it's going to create a good story for posterity! Keep the old chin up Sir!
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I spent last week removing all the valves, labelling  and bagging them, along with their associated retention collets, valve springs and upper retention plates. I then set about cleaning up all the carbon in the cylinder head and from the exhaust ports.
It was about this time that I started to query why I had so much carbon and in particular on the piston crowns. I did wonder if E10 played a part in all of this and whether or not fuels containing alcohol have a tendency to cause greater carbon deposits. Google helped put that theory to bed but there was no denying . . .the engine had more carbon build-up than it should but not only that, a lot of it was shale-like and loose but also, the deposits were inconsistent. At least one of the exhaust ports had no carbon in an area where the other two were encrusted . . . hmm!!!
My next port of call with Google had me researching the cause of carbon deposits under valve seats and it would seem that the most common cause is due to burning engine oil, most often as a result of worn valve guides. In this instance, the evidence is normally clear to see and results in carbon on the valve stems and around the throat of the valve - absent in my case but of course . . . . there remains another and rather more obvious cause of oil consumption with the 1050 . . . cracked pistons!! I have never been troubled by oil consumption on my bike but I don't do many miles and it's always possible that I simply haven't noticed or perhaps the problem has just become worse more recently?
Anyway - burning oil is the most common cause of carbon deposits in an otherwise correctly fueled engine but  . . . what really caught my eye was the statement that incorrectly seated exhaust valves are then subject to pitting and melting of the interface which can result in microspheres of molten metal eroding from the valve seats.  I looked at mine more closely . . . indeed, under a high-powered loupe. What I found is not confidence inspiring. . . . . .

1. Earlier on in this post I posed a question about whether or not valves are "coated". One of the reasons I did so was because I had polished the head of one of my exhaust valves and was surprised to find it had a surface texture, much like fine sandpaper. When I looked closely, the valve head was black from carbon but punctuated by a great many minute raised metallic particles embedded in the surface - only now visible as metallic having been debrided by metal polish. The appearance was like weld spatter but was easily removed with a 3M scouring pad.
2. I decided to look at the exhaust valves more closely and as the number 6 had the worst leak, took a look at the back face of the valve. In addition to the discrete carbon deposits, it has numerous small pits in the surface all around the circumference of the seat . . . not really noticeable to the naked eye but clear to see with a powerful loupe . . . . buggerations - this is starting to make sense!!
3. Next I looked at the valve inserts in the head - all look normal to the naked eye but again, a magnifying loupe tells a different story. The inlets are all as per factory - you can still see the machining marks in the metal but having removed the carbon from the exhausts, the seats have numerous small pits and pock marks.

If the metal on the valve faces comes from here, it's hard to understand how. Surely if the valve is leaking on the combustion stroke, any escaping high speed gases would squeeze through and rapidly travel down the exhaust, taking any molten microspheres with them and not  deposit them on the face of the valve within the combustion chamber???  I'm puzzled but prior to pulling the pistons, the following is my latest theory

My pistons are cracked and this likely coincides with me first noticing a long cranking cycle required on engine start about two years and around 6000 miles ago - I've just lived with it ever since.
This has caused oil to get into the combustion chambers and the deposition of shale-like carbon deposits which in turn, have caused incomplete closure of some of the exhaust valves. This has resulted in pitting of the valve seats - of the valve itself and the inserts in the head, plus the deposition of minute molten metal particles on the faces of the exhaust valves. Do note that nowhere else are these particles evident - not on the inlets valves or within the combustion chamber itself . . .all very odd.

This has been bugging me and I decided that I would look more closely today at the "scoring" in my liners.  I did state previously that it was "minimal" and couldn't be felt with a fingernail - more like wear lines. . . .I was wrong. Mostly, they are as stated but one or two do actually register with a fingernail.

It is all conjecture at this moment in time but of course, we will know soon enough. I had psychologically prepared myself to foot the bill for new liners and pistons. £900 isn't cheap but I'm attached to the bike and want to keep it. If that bill now morphs into £900 for pistons and liners, £600 for a set of valves, £1300 for a new cylinder head plus another £500 for incidentals (cylinder head gasket, valve stem seals etc etc), then clearly the economics don't stack up. In fairness, I don't need them to stack up but in this instance, the disparity will be too great to justify and I suspect there will be some great Tiger parts coming up on eBay in the not too distant future.
I'll sit it out for now . . . . pistons will be out next week and then I'll know for sure but for now at least, I think despondent is the best description of my mood.

Wear marks apparently insignificant but in hindsight . . . .




 . . . maybe not - one or two can be felt with the Mk1 fingernail!! 

6
Apologies for the lack of updates but I've been busy removing valves, cleaning up the head and more recently, making a liner extractor tool and attempting to remove the liners.
I'm not quite sure where to begin because there is bad news to report, or at least . . . potentially bad news.
I will start with the liner extraction.

So, for those of us unwilling to splash out £160 on Triumph's special tool, it seems there are two methods that receive popular support
1. Wrap duct tape around the inside of the liner, hand crank the engine and use the force of the piston to simply drive out the liner and . . . .
2. Make a clone of the Triumph tool using a 3"/75mm steel drain plug tester

I opted for the latter and I'm so glad I did.  . . . . Some folks report pushing out the liners as a simple and straightforward affair and I have come to realise this depends totally upon the security of the silicone seal at the base of the liner - mine were tight, very tight indeed.  I can categorically state that if you attempted method 1 on my engine, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that you would damage the pistons and/or rings. The amount of force required to lift the liners on my engine was massive and of course, the piston would attempt to squeeze past the duct tape and all the force would be taken by the first ring and land.

I purchased the plug, a short length of 12mm threaded rod and glued it into the plug. A washer and a couple of 12mm nuts completed the parts list - total cost from eBay - just under £14.00.  I then set about making a wooden "bridge" which I backed with some sheet rubber to protect the gasket face of the engine block. 
Sadly, my tool didn't perform as expected and despite doing up the plug as tight as  I could, operating the draw nut merely resulted in the plug sliding up inside the liner. Don't get me wrong . . . it was resisting admirably and the amount of force required to move the thing was significant but at the end of the day, it was the plug which moved and not the liner.
I guess I tried about 20 times in total before retiring to sleep on it. . . .

I made another attempt today except this time, I wrapped about two layers of duct tape around the top of the liner and a strip of bicycle inner tube, held in place with double sided tape - I figured that short of reverting to semtex, this had to work!!??   I tightened the draw very slowly and kept the whole thing under significant tension in the expectation the silicone seal would be getting constantly stretched and sooner or later would start to let go and peel free - This seems to be pretty much what happened. After about 5-10 minutes of slowly turning the nut, each liner suddenly let go and it was "job done".
I'm away now for a few days and didn't have time to remove the liners and pistons from the engine but that will be my next job on my return, however, I'm feeling rather despondent about where this whole exercise is leading and I will post and explain separately below.



I was nervous of scratching the bores with the tool. It has a minimum useable diameter of 75mm and goes up to 83mm or thereabouts. To prevent any mishaps, I tightened the wingnut by hand until the rubber was compressed and the tool was a smooth, sliding interference fit in the bore, having previously wiped it down with brake cleaner - this meant there was no chance of metal to metal contact.
The two 12mm nuts are then locked together at the top of the threaded rod and . . . .



 . . . . . . this allows the rod to be held with a spanner whilst the wingnut is turned and the tool tightened in the bore as much as possible. Having done that, the nuts are removed, the bridge placed over the top, before adding a washer and nut and slowly tightening in an attempt to draw up the liner.



20 attempts and some 2-3 hours later and I had made no progress whatsoever and all I had achieved was . . . . . .



To draw the plug up inside the liner and for the liner to remain steadfastly glued to the block



After sleeping on it overnight - this was my next attempt. A couple of wraps of duct tape, followed by . . . .





A length of inner tube, held in place with double sided tape and then the tool inserted below this added restriction. I suspect that even this method won't work if you merely tighten the spanner rapidly. The key is to apply a constant steady force by slow turning of the spanner . . after about 5-10 minutes in each case, the liner suddenly released.



This picture shows the tool in use but as always, I overlooked something . . . . Having released the central liner and raised it a couple of millimetres, it then meant my tool wouldn't sit square on the head - hence the randomly inserted pieces of thin plywood to raise the tool above the liner. Duh . . bit of an oversight but hardly a problem - I could have bashed the thing back in with a rubber mallet

7
Parts, Accessories & Clothing For Sale / Re: SP Engineering Exhaust for TS 2016+
« Last post by gbcarson on 29 November, 2023, 02:42:14 pm »
I'm happy to accept a reasonable offer if anybody is interested?
8
Wanted Board / Re: 2010 - 1050 Centre Stand
« Last post by ZX12R on 29 November, 2023, 12:53:48 pm »
i use an abba stand for maintenance.
10
On Two Wheels / Re: another triple
« Last post by Yellow Dog on 28 November, 2023, 10:06:35 am »
That sounds like the perfect excuse to acquire another bike.

Well played that man  :152:
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