883 evo sportster cam/pinion gears

[bimmanz]

Motor is a 1987 883 Evo



Hi guys. I wonder if I can ask a very dumb question. I have just taken off the cam gear cover to replace the gasket which was leaking, when I pulled the cover off the cam gears came away with it. No problems there, I took the head covers off and pulled the push rods up and replaced the cam gears. I lined them all up as per the manual, but I cant find a mark on the pinion gear like the manual says?
In fact I cant see any marks on it at all.

Is there one, or do you have to put it on TDC or something?
I took the lock washer off and took the pinion gear right off to make sure, It sits on a multi spline so it can go on in a variety of ways.

Might also sound funny, but how do you tell top dead center ?

Appreciate any help please?

G

[Dave63]

Top dead center is using the front cylinder, on compression, then looking at the flywheel marks via the timing hole.

However, timing the cams has nothing to do with top dead center. You need to find the timing mark on the pinion gear. It's usually on one of the teeth. Sometimes it can be a slash or a dot.

[bimmanz]

Cheers for that. I cleaned the pinion gear off and found a faint straight line on one of the teeth. Checked the inspection hole and found a dot and a line. I checked on the net and found this


https://www.dropbox.com/s/rt3xh49ihb...n_figure_1.gif

Looking at both options its a bit confusing, it could be either. They both have a dot and a grove. I went for the first because the dot looks more in the center. I just dont want to put it all back together and find it should have been the other lol

Originally Posted by Dave63

Top dead center is using the front cylinder, on compression, then looking at the flywheel marks via the timing hole.

However, timing the cams has nothing to do with top dead center. You need to find the timing mark on the pinion gear. It's usually on one of the teeth. Sometimes it can be a slash or a dot.

[bimmanz]

Well I spent the weekend putting it together and pulling it all apart again twice. Turns out after reading ALL the manuals, both online and my one, plus referring to a few forums and online pictures to get the right information which clearly say my 87 motor should have a line as TDC and a dot as the advance BTDC mark, is completely wrong. The marks are actually the dot punch mark is TDC and the line is advance BTDC.
The gears were the easy part lol

Anyway, shes all going again but its certainly a trap if you dont know.