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Long read.... I'm about ready to burn my 700 to the ground. Here's the story... replaced rings, crosshatched bore, valve guide seals, rear diff axle seal, prop shaft knuckle boot, wheel bearings, air filter, LR cv axle, plug wire boot, spark plug, and all associated gaskets. I also serviced the rear diff and changed the oil. I sprayed out the horrible factory intake with water (while it was removed), and fully removed and reinstalled the entire exhaust. When I removed the muffler and spark arrestor, a small piece of metal (about the size of a quarter) fell out of the muffler body. I tapped all over and inside the muffler to listen for broken welds, etc, heard nothing. Spark arrestor was pretty bad, so I cleaned it before reinstalling. I put dielectric grease in all of the connections I took loose and payed really close attention to the service manual. When I was disassembling, I noticed the cam seemed "off a tooth" if that's even possible. I mean, maybe 15°. I timed it per the manual on reassembly, made sure the cam chain slack was on the tensioner side, and released the tensioner. Everything seemed to be fine, and I confidently fired it up. After 2-4 seconds of idling, I could hear (what i believe) the cam chain slapping. I removed the end plug from the tensioner and manually extended the tensioner arm just a little and the sound went away. I have a new tensioner on order. So, I let it heat cycle a couple times, and went on a test ride.
I tore the top end down because I was using oil. Combustion chamber looked good, plug looked good, and the spot on the air filter where the blowby hose is showed no signs of oil puking or excess burning. In fact, that was the cleanest part of the filter. Intake and valves looked good. Valve guide seals didn't appear damaged, but I replaced them anyway. I still don't know where the oil was going. There are no external leaks that I can see. Before the work, it would run about 43ish with 27" Dirt Commanders. On my test drive, I slowly maxed the throttle after a few miles. 37mph. Seriously. WTF. Runs fine, in neutral, starts up immediately and sounds ok. I looked over the cam lobes when I removed it (don't have a micrometer) and didn't see any visual signs of excess wear or damage. Using the search function, I found where some units had a muffler baffle break loose and restrict the exhaust. Again, I pulled the muffler looking, tapping, and listening for internal damage. I couldn't find anything. Obviously something came apart in there because the little quarter-sized piece of metal fell out, but nothing rattles or chirps. I know new rings need to seat, but I've never seen that much power loss from seating rings. It feels like it just runs out of breath. Aside from buying a new exhaust to "see if that fixes it" I'm out of ideas. Anybody seen this before? The pic is the piece that fell out of the muffler. I'm standing here with the matches...lol
I tore the top end down because I was using oil. Combustion chamber looked good, plug looked good, and the spot on the air filter where the blowby hose is showed no signs of oil puking or excess burning. In fact, that was the cleanest part of the filter. Intake and valves looked good. Valve guide seals didn't appear damaged, but I replaced them anyway. I still don't know where the oil was going. There are no external leaks that I can see. Before the work, it would run about 43ish with 27" Dirt Commanders. On my test drive, I slowly maxed the throttle after a few miles. 37mph. Seriously. WTF. Runs fine, in neutral, starts up immediately and sounds ok. I looked over the cam lobes when I removed it (don't have a micrometer) and didn't see any visual signs of excess wear or damage. Using the search function, I found where some units had a muffler baffle break loose and restrict the exhaust. Again, I pulled the muffler looking, tapping, and listening for internal damage. I couldn't find anything. Obviously something came apart in there because the little quarter-sized piece of metal fell out, but nothing rattles or chirps. I know new rings need to seat, but I've never seen that much power loss from seating rings. It feels like it just runs out of breath. Aside from buying a new exhaust to "see if that fixes it" I'm out of ideas. Anybody seen this before? The pic is the piece that fell out of the muffler. I'm standing here with the matches...lol
