How to change out water pump seal/shaft and retain your cam timing

EDIT: Dec 2012 - to add info that would allow for RECOVERING cam timing without removing the cams.

This was done on a 2010 TE 450, should apply to many other models/years.

I took my bike apart all wrong for this job and had to use dfeckel's excellent write-up on foolproof cam timing.
EDIT: That method is only foolproof if the dimples on the gears are correct. Mine were not. ALWAYS put the bike at absolute TDC (use a small piece of wire to line up the double dimple and the mark on the cam chest wall) and look at the dimples on the left sides of both cams to determine where the left-side dimples are located on YOUR bike, take a picture of the locations or draw a picture.

I hated taking the cam caps off and almost dropped one of the little cap collars into the engine, found it on the floor a day later...those collars are loose and you have to watch them closely.



Anyway, waiting on my parts to arrive, I got the cam timing right again and I was determined to figure out how to do this without losing the cam timing AND if I did lose it, how to get it back without pulling the cams out. So I put it all back together and started with the procedure:

1. Pull the cam cover like you're doing a valve adjust. Get it to TDC with the double dimples on the drive gear aligned with the mark on the cam chest wall.


2. Pull the center bolt on the ACCT (automatic cam chain tensioner). This releases the spring so that the ACCT doesnt keep pushing inward.


3. Pull the retaining bolts for the ACCT and remove it carefully, look at the ridges and count them with a toothpick or something, or just eyeball it. As others have said, this will give you an indication of how stretched your cam chain is. Mine was 6 clicks in.

4. Get a bungee cord and hook it into the hole on the drive sprocket, run it up to the handlebars, pulling the drive gear up and to the right, into the cam gears. Make sure its tight and is not going to slip. If there is not a hole at the top, middle on your bike, use a small C-clamp, clamped to the sprocket, to hook the bungee into.

5. Remove the water pump housing and eventually, the water pump shaft, while watching the bungee keep the drive gear pulled up and in to the cam gears.



You can see in the pic above, the bungee cord pulling up, the ACCT removed to relieve tension to allow the WP shaft to be removed, the marks I put on the left side of the cam gears so I could recover the cam timing without pulling the cams.

The thing is, the cam gears are ALREADY MARKED on the left side, for recovering the cam timing without pulling the cams. In the pic below, you can see where I scratched a mark on the mounting boss, and then painted 2 gear teeth, but there was already a dimple on the gear that lines up perfectly with the plane of the cam chest top edge! There's another dimple on the intake cam as well, aligned with the cam chest edge.



So now I am ready for my WP shaft and seal, I will install the seal into the WP housing, slide the new WP shaft and bearing into the housing and then slide that shaft/housing assembly into the cam chest, wiggling the bungee'd drive sprocket to the get the shaft in. Once the shaft is installed, cam timing will be locked in. THEN re-install the fully slacked-off ACCT, and when tightened down, push the plunger in gently with a pick or punch, counting the clicks as it moves to press the cam chain. Don't force it, if it needs another click, the spring will advance it another click as the bike runs, gets hot and cool, etc. You should get the same number of click sounds as you counted visually before, then install the spring into the ACCT.

Tools that came in VERY handy on this job:

The rounded off 5mm allen wrench. I know that RayRay had a hard time making his 5mm allen fit the cam caps very well. I think the cam cap bolts are kind of dished inside and they are very shallow. The rounded aspect of the wrench in the pic seemed to grip the bolt better than a squared off wrench.

The long 5mm wide screwdriver was fast in extracting the cam cap bolts, much better than wrassling with the allen wrench or trying to use oily fingers.

The flexible 1/4" drive extension allowed me to quickly remove and install the ACCT.

EDIT to add how to RECOVER cam timing that is lost when the shaft is removed, I am having a bit of a mental block in imagining all the steps without having the head on my bike opened up, may take a while to finish this. Here is the link to dfeckel's Foolproof Cam Timing thread:
http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/foolproof-cam-timing.3108/
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If you let the drive gear fall down real low and you think you might have slipped a gear tooth down below on the crankshaft, that will need to be corrected. You will most likely have to go thru the steps to get to TDC and set the cam timing and then finally, check to see if TDC is right with the crank/piston and thus with the cam drive gear position.

If you had your bike at TDC, with the double mark lined up (see pic above) that's good, you can continue to a step below the TDC steps.

to be continued





If you didn't have the bike at TDC at the beginning, you're gonna need to get the bike to TDC.

Put a smooth rod in where the water pump shaft goes, like a round shafted large screwdriver, to hold the gear up somewhat.

Remove the ACCT (see 2 and 3 above)

Reinstall the water pump shaft, being careful to not let the cam chain dangle down too far, and don't rotate the drive gear while installing the shaft.

to be continued

hey Olhusky
here is where is screwed up...when i pulled the shaft somehow i dislodged the main gear (one that is in the middle).....then i took off the top and the cam shaft....even after pulling out the exhaust and the intake i still couldnt fit in the shaft...for some reason the holes didnt align and has moved down a little bit....here is the hole thru which the shaft has to go in


the shaft with the new seal


How do i align it...i tried loosening then cam tentioner bolt on the 3rd picture above...the gear didnt move a bit..somehow it seems it dropped by few centimeters and i cant get the shaft in thru it....anything i am missing here...

Thanks
Rudy

I'd say to completely remove the ACCT, you can't really loosen it, the spring loaded bar that puts tension on the chain is notched and will not loosen, only tighten more, you may have caused to spring and the notches to rachet even tighter, you gotta pull the whole thing. And before you remove the ACCT, be sure and support the drive gear by putting a smooth round bar up there, like a round screwdriver, a small one that will fit into the mis-matched holes, that will keep the chain from falling downward when you pull the tensioner from it..

so...remove the exhaust section so that i can have a clear shot at removing the whole ACCT (thats the three bolt 2 that holds it and one that is the tensioner) am i right...when i open it up...will that loosen the whole thing...and what happens after i open it...just put it back the same way in?? either way i will get to it tomorrow and keep u guys posted

I didnt have to remove my exhaust the pull the ACCT, i used a flexible 1/4" socket extension (in the pic above) that made it easier to get the 2 mounting bolts out.

I put the ACCT back in and heard 6-7 clicks......so i think the tensioner put more tensioner as the shaft fell thru hence the 11 clicks that showed up when i took the ACCT out......am i right..

below is my first observation


i pulled out the ACCT...and i checked the number of clicks at 11.....what is the normal number on it....this is what i counted the ridges


and if these are the clicks and if the cam chain is stretched then do i have to order a new chain? I have the whole engine apart...might as well fix as many issues i might have in future....

Big Thanks to Ol Husky and Dfeckle for the pictures and instruction for the seal on the water pump and then to reset the timing on the cam....
while at it i also checked the valves on the husky for the first time ever...its so simple and for the longest time i was scared to open up the husky...

after this event where to replace the seal i screwed up much more but i learnt a lot in the process too....

thanks all

Its back together and running?

So I stitched everything back together, it has snowed here yesterday and its freezing in low 30...the bike won't start...I am charging the battery again to see if I can start It again.....

Any symptoms I need to look out do?

How were you able to rotate the drive gear to TDC with the cams all out of position? That's the part that I couldn't envision a technique to do.

So after I got the ACCT out, I could get the shaft that has the water pump on it back in, after that was done I put back the water pump impeller housing back on, at this point I had both the exhaust and intake out.....

Then with the kick start I got to TDC once that was done I got the timing done according to dfeckles instruction....

So you did take the cam caps off and take the camshafts out and you are now following dfeckles procedure, correct?

Make sure you have a collar for each cam cap mounting hole. You should have stuffed a rag into the head underneath the cam shafts, to block the hole that leads to the lower end, so nothing will fall down in there.
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I talked to Rudy, he did check for TDC accuracy with a stick in the spark plug hole, and TDC marks on the cam drive gear, so I'm pretty confident he didn't jump any teeth anywhere.
He did follow dfeckle's procedure but the bike is popping and will not start. Rudy is now re-checking the cam timing with the dimple marks on the camshaft gears on the water pump side.

So here are the pictures..i think the timing is fine, but let me know

The bike at TDC


Intake from outside at TDC...the dot is level with the head


Exhaust from outside at TDC...the dot is level with the head


Intake side from inside, u could see the gears lining up with the paint


Exhaust side from inside (both this picture and above are not at TDC, i was trying to take a picture that the gears were matching up with the paint)

After looking more closely at the angle of the cam lobes (which is how I finally determined my timing to be wrong) Rudy says that the exhaust cam appears to be a little lower than the intake cam, so he's taking more pics.

Let me know if you think the angle is off..it def looks like that...although everything else lines up pretty good

You did re-install the ACCT and the chain feels like it is tight on the drive sprocket, correct?

The cam lobe angles look to be very similar to me. When my exhaust cam was one tooth off, the lower angle of the exhaust cam was pretty apparent, you might use the piece of paper trick and try to measure/quantify the angle of the intake lobe and the exhaust lobe, transfer the angle measurements to a piece of paper and see if they are similar.

My bike actually ran good with the exhaust cam off by one tooth, Dan's 510 did as well, it was just impossible to start because the automatic decompressor was hampered by the exhaust cam being off one tooth.

You may have a clogged up choke venturi or a clogged up pilot/idle jet in the carb causing your non-starting.

i didnt change the setting from as shown above....but i drained the carb and then tried to start again...no luck at all...i tried kick starting it...but still nothing it dosent start....

as from the picture i did feel the exhaust was higher...i will get it back to one tooth down and see if that helps with starting the bike up....

Thanks Jake for the help

I've compared your pic above to Dfeckel's pic, they are of a similar angle, yours looks to be very close, only you can really tell, since you have the bike there, but this pic makes yours look close