Legendary Valkyrie reliability ??????? READ THIS !

[NEHI]

  I'm writing this message from my home in So. Florida, instead of touring Yellowstone (were I should be today). Let me start from the begining. About a year ago my SO and I decided to do a motorcycle tour of the West starting in Las Vegas and ending in Rapid city SD while visiting all the parks in between (3 weeks). We booked rooms 8 mos. ago at the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone etc. I own 5 other bikes, none of which I would consider a touring motorcycle. So I bought a 99 I/S with 10,200mi on it. Over the four months I have owned it I put another 2,000mi on it and replaced all the belts,hoses, tires(dark side). Bought an ultimate seat, luggage rack new leathers, everything I could think of for safety, comfort and reliability for this wonderful trip we had planned. So I had the Valk shipped to Las Vegas Harley Davidson (Honda wouldn't except delivery) I picked the bike on Sunday the 2nd and drove it to the Mirage parking garage packed it for the trip and left the next morning for the Grand Canyon
    About 8 miles out on Lake Mead blvd. It happened, the bike started acting like it was running out of gas (I had a full tank) I pulled into a 7-11 and started checking the obvious, gas to the carbs,spark,fuses everything looked fine, so I decided to call Honda (I won't mention which Honda). I was told by the service rep. that they wouldn't be able to look at the bike for 3-5 days. I explained my situation, 2100mi from home 1st day on the trip etc. and was told that they were to busy to help me, I asked to speak to a manager and was told that it wouldn't help!! I have never in my life felt so helpless!! So I said to my girlfriend I am not going to let honda or the Valk rune this trip I'm going to fix this right here in the parking lot (102deg). I got the tools out and went at it, the right side of the bike was blowing out hot exhaust the left cold I pulled the tank to see if the air cleaner had come apart and cloged the carbs (no) so I took off the timing belt cover, no problem their. The only thing I could think of was a broken camshaft (but on a Valk impossible) I took the cover off and their it was, broken between the first journal and the first lobe!! I called Honda (not really expecting them to have a camshaft) the first thing the parts guy said was Intake or Exhaust, I said a Valkyrie and he said yes I know but is it intake or exhaust, I explained again and told him it was the left cam and then he said that their were to part numbers for that cam which one did I want, I again said 99 Valkyrie I/S he said that their were still to part numbers and I would have to tell him which one I wanted and even if he ordered over night I might not see it for a few days. At that point I gave up, at that point a guy on a Harley pulled up and offered to store the bike in his garage until I could get it shipped back to florida, I rented a convertable Mustang and did 5 days of my trip. Thanks for reading this, I guess I needed to let out some frustration.
   Dean...

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

Going on 12 years as a Valkyrie owner thats the first time I think I've saw someone having that happen to a Valkyrie.What would cause that ? It's the best motorcycle I've ever owned and I've had Wings,Harley's ,Kawasaki's and Suzuki's.I like mine so much I bought 2 more.Bummer about the trip 

[fudgie]

Wow. Sorry to hear that.    Was there any other Honda dealer in town? Sometimes you can try another bike dealer (Yama, Kawa, HD) and they could help you out. How come you didn't ride from current location? What I mean is at least it would have been local during your break down. Hopefully. Instead of renting a 'stang maybe you could have rented another bike. I been blessed. All my trips to SD have been good with no breakdowns in 50,000 miles.

[stormrider]

bummer, but I gotta ditto what Joe said, not that length of time but going on 3 years and 35k miles. On this club for 3 years and never heard of it before. Hey, could be a good thing. Sometimes sh--t happens that appears to be horrible but we don't know what's around the corner. That happening could have prevented something tragic from happening while out on the bike. Don't give up on the Valk, I'm sure if you did a survey you would find very few who the Valk has left stranded. Sorry bout the ruined plans though.

[Valker]

I guess anything can happen. I've never heard of this one before. I have 114,000 on mine with minimal servicing (oil, wheel bearings, splines, one set of spark plugs). I just did a bit over 1000 miles on Friday and Saturday of this past weekend. Never gave it a moments concern.

[Doc Moose]

The F6 engine is reknowned for it's reliability.  Unfortunately that doesn't make it invincible and totally without a chance of breakage.  It IS manmade.

It is VERY disturbing that the Honda dealer treated you with so little regard in your predicament.  Your story is not unique in that manner.  Big Red seems to have forgotten some of the basics.

[Robert]

Dean I cant believe its you I wondered what had happened to you after you closed your shop in Boca on 16th st between first ave and Boca Raton Blvd. I didn't remember if you owned the building that the moving and storage took over or not but that's really funny. Do you remember Buzz Marcus? Well anyway I almost thought that you were a post just to get people excited and wasn't legit. Because I have never heard or seen a Valk break a camshaft there's got to be more to this than meets the eye. Did you take it apart because you haven't posted what you found either. That is so unusual to happen the valves really have no pressure on the cam they are so weak and unless you lost oil or were low on oil and the cam seized I cant think how it would have happened.  Is it possible that when you changed the timing belts in May that the tensioner wasn't tight enough because if a Valve hit a piston that would certainly make the cam break. There have been some reports of the rivets for the clutch plugging up the scavenger pump and the bike would burn oil like when you add to much oil to the 911s. But I am really sorry to hear about your adventure there are guys here that have over 200k on their bikes the engine is the Goldwing that has many many miles on it so the bike is good. As for Honda what a bunch of sobs not to care. How is it that a guy that works on Triumphs and MG's has a reliability issue with a Valkyrie? Well now I know where your at I will call you and say hello.

[f6john]

So what's your situation on getting the bike home?

[Don07tncav]

  Sure hate to read this! My wife and I put over 8,000 miles on Drakkar this summer with one of our trips being to Arizona and the Grand Canyon and over 60,000 miles since I've owned the bike. We picked up a staple in the rear tire and were semi scalped at a dealer in AZ but the bike ran great. Just wish you had a laptop and could have gotten on one of the Valk sites for some help and parts numbers.

I blew a U joint once and told the dealer I was calling Directline Honda for the part, they overnighted a new u joint after a 4pm Eastern time call, had it to the dealer by 10am the next morning and I was on the road a short time later. The dealer gave me a bit of a runaround so I called Directline myself to get the part.

[rainman]

Sorry to here about your trip.  Like smokinjoe said I to have had them all and the only one that I had any trouble with was the  _ _   let you fill in the blank.  I now have 99 I/S only had it for about 3 years (still just a young pup) but I looking at buying another one just to have around.  The other bike I have is a 2005 1700 roadstar great bike but will not stand up to the Valk.  In fact my wife does not like ridding the star since I got the Valk. The only problem that I have had the F6 was on 96 goldwing trike and the alt. Went out on me and left me sitting on the side of the road.  But we fix the problem and went on. I don’t know all the past history about the Valk but I will say this. Don’t give up on her fix her up and she will be good for another 100k. 



we was getting ready to head south on the picture

[NEHI]

   Thanks for all the quick replies. To answer a few questions, I didn't ride the bike out to Vegas because of time (and the fact that it is a very boring ride, but I was going to ride it back to Fla.) I didn't want to rent another bike I wanted to ride mine. I could have waited to get parts, but I had rooms reserved at the Grand Canyon and I didn't want to loose them. I also know that I could have got on line and a Valk owner in the area would have come to my rescue (as I would them) but I was so taken back by the whole experience I just wanted to move on. As far as the cam, I unbolted the bearing assy. and it fell out in my hand (the broken part) with no scores on the bearing surface. I just think it was a bad casting that decided to rear it's ugly head at the wrong time. As for getting the bike home i'm waiting for Haulbikes to give me a date for pickup, any other Ideas? I contemplated having Honda fix it and fly out to get it and drive it home, but I don't trust them to work on it. And Buzz call me! British Sports Car Works 772-398-7007

[Robert]

I redid my message below but check the valves I think you may have one or more bent. Its possible that the belt loosened on the cam and the valve timing changed allowing the valve to hit the piston locking the cam up. Ill call Tuesday.   The only thing you need is someone to do a leak down test and see if there are any bent valves if so you know you can have someone pull the head and send it to you. Have your machine shop do the work and send it back to the ones that took off the head. Its really easy to do and I would trust someone to do that much if you want to ride it home. Or theres DPR in California that do some nice machine work on Valk heads so Maybe you could get a few more HP at the same time.

[Daniel Meyer]

What Robert said above...

With a broken camshaft you'd pretty much HAVE to have several bent valves as well...wither the cause or the result.

[NEHI]

   It may be the result, but I don't think it was the cause. When I took off the timing cover all the timing marks lined up and the belt tension was fine. Before I realised it was the camshaft I had it running (on 3 cylinders) with the timing cover off and it all looked fine the broken cam was just turning on the first journal and I couldn't tell it was broken. Also after I took the cam out I pushed on all the valves and they all moved without any binding, but I will pull the head and check anyway.

[Dogg]

It could have been a bad casting. those cams are cast then heat treated afterwards.
there may have been an imperfection in it but noone caught it. Snapped a cam in the race with no scoring?? cant bend a valve...cam didnt turn...buy a cam, put it in ride it home. simple...

[Duckwheat]

Remind me never to take you fishing,.............................................................or for that matter don't let me take you anywhere. That is some bad Mojo you got going.

DW

[Dogg]

your wasting time pulling head unless you just want to be sure...really. I've broken many many cams in my life from over revving(might you have slipped and hit the limiter before??) while racing. From too much vavlespring tension(when I was very young and knew absolutely everything there was to know about nothing). and Just being stupid. if the bearing isnt scored, the cam didnt turn, no valve damage can happen....ok, Ill be quiet, sorry to interupt

[Kingbee]

Our engines are interference engines, meaning if the valve timing is off, pistons ARE going to hit them.  I would say with a broken cam, the timing is off................

[NEHI]

  Dogg and Junior
   I was driving down the road at about 40mph when the bike just felt like it was running out of gas, no bang no pop no metal on metal. Before I removed the cam I checked the position too of the valves had clearance the other too were partially open, I don't know how much clearance this interferance motor has, but perhaps I got lucky. I will find out when I get it home. By the way I have been working on internal combustion engines a lot longer than 20yrs. Check me out BRITISHSPORTSCARWORKS.com.
  Reguards

[junior]

briggs and stratton dont count

[Robert]

Believe it or not if pistons contact valves there usually isn't noise even when you try to restart and the engine starts running. If you can get the thing revving then maybe you will hear some but other wise no. I had a few Jags that had a problem with the timing chain tensioners the plastic on the face of the tensioner would come loose and wedge itself into the space between the chain and the gear breaking the chain and of course bending the valves. This engine has variable valve timing and has 4 cams and it was typically the exhaust cam because the intake cam was driven off the main chain while the exhaust was driven off the intake cam via another chain. I will never forget the people who owned the car they thought that it was something simple like fuel or such when I told them would have to take apart the engine and the cost they were in shock. Since it was the exhaust cam it was one complete bank that was out and the car still started and ran of course not well but it almost sounded like a injection problem no real indication of what was lurking inside.

[Cruzen]

OK I am going to play the devils advocate here but you said you had your Valk shipped.  How do you know that someone did not decide to do a few burnouts or hard runs on your bike.  It's not unheard of especially if you ship the bike to a competitor.  Maybe they wanted to see if it was that much faster than those Harleys.  A few over revs or burnouts on loose material would be enough to do that sort of damage.

I once witnessed a transport driver doing a few burnouts in a vintage muscle car before he loaded it onto the transporter.  The engine was relative cold and that was not the best for it.  Your bike may have been mishandled somewhere along the way.

[NEHI]

   Cruzen:
    That thought had crossed my mind, but I set the trip OD to zero and wrote down the actual milage anticipating that might happen, but no extra miles were put on the bike. As for Harley Davidson of Las Vegas, they could not of been more professional! Unlike Honda!!!

[Rocketman]

As for the dealership:
I have had very little luck finding a dealership of any brand that was helpful.  I needed some work on a road trip (my own stupidity, but still...), and the dealership I went into (Fay Meyers Honda, Denver, CO- ) was of NO help whatsoever.  In my opinion, folks on the road take priority.  If I'm at home, I don't mind letting someone go ahead of me if it means them not sitting dead in the water for three or seven days.  Dealerships/mechanics/whatever need to use some common sense in the "first come first served" policy.

[junior]

i still say he is full of it
he said the whole bank was cold and wasnt working, for all you gurus out there why dont you try this go pull the 3 plug wires on one bank or the other and try to fire your bike up even with that you will still have the valve train working unlike his..........and tell me how it works out for you. IMHO i think he is trying to get a rise out of all of you guys

[Cruzen]

Personally, I have not had much bad luck with the dealerships but about a year ago all the local metric bike dealers got together and decided to be closed on Monday.  Several close around three on Saturday so if you break down late Saturday or Sunday you will have to wait till Tuesday to just get in to talk with one of them. 

By contrast the local Harley dealer is open seven days a week and they always seem to be busy late Saturday and in some cases on Sunday.  Could this be why they sell more bikes????? 

Last year I wrote to corporate Honda about this lack of service but got no response.  I even sent a copy of the same letter to Honda of Japan and got no response.

[Dogg]

  Dogg and Junior
   I was driving down the road at about 40mph when the bike just felt like it was running out of gas, no bang no pop no metal on metal. Before I removed the cam I checked the position too of the valves had clearance the other too were partially open, I don't know how much clearance this interferance motor has, but perhaps I got lucky. I will find out when I get it home. By the way I have been working on internal combustion engines a lot longer than 20yrs. Check me out BRITISHSPORTSCARWORKS.com.
  Reguards

not questioning your abilities. Just saying...even with an interference motor, if the cam broke at the first journal like you said, nothing was moving, hence, no damage. new cam and down the road.
  Being a wrencher yourself, you will know once you get into it what I mean. and since the cam DID break, of course its outa time....I broke a stock cam once before and did no damage. broke before the first bearing and once I got it apart, replaced. on the road again I was:D

 Keep us posted of what you find once you have it home.. Thanks.

[NEHI]

  Junior
   The cam broke, no valves opening or closing on the left side the right side was running the engine .I even drove the bike about 1/4 mi to the good samaritan's house where the bike is now. When I get the bike back I will post pictures and if you like I will send you the broken cam!! Why would I want to get a rise out of everyone? This ruined a long planned vacation, I should be in Yellowstone right now!!

[junior]

you said that you are a mechanic, and that had to have been an awfull rough ride running on 3 cyl. and the other 3 were defunked. from what i have researched  this is 2nd cam that has broken at the 1st jurnal (dogg being the 2nd) and from what you have relayed in this thread its my oppion that you might have caused more damage than good by running it that 1/4 of a mile on 1/2 the engine.

and yes i would like to see pics of the tear down of the engine right from the start to the finsh

[NEHI]

  Junior:
  Actually the engine idled and ran suprisingly well, but lacked power. I really didn't think I would do any more damage to the engine than had already been done, because I limped it into the 7-11 and cranked it over bunch of times before I realized what was wrong. Did you say Dogg had a broken cam at one time?

[Kingbee]

I think whatever damage was done, was done right when the cam broke, but a few bent valves are no big deal.

I did look at the parts fische, and there are, indeed, two different cam part numbers for each side.  How does one know which to use?  Could one be for California models, and which one?

[NEHI]

   Yes one is a California version, and it clearly shows it on the Honda parts page at my local Honda dealer. I don't know why the guy in Vegas was having a problem.

[Dogg]

I broke a cam in a suziki GS motor with an ARE head. racing. never broke a cam in my valk and God know how I abuse that poor baby...

[HotRod]

 Sorry to hear that, were in Las Vegas? You said Lake mead Dr. Just wondering, I could of helped you out.

[Madmike]

Sorry to hear of your bad luck and the poor response that you got from the Honda dealer- my experience is that it doesn't matter what brand of iron you run it will all break down eventually and dealers are dealers no matter who the represent, some will provide first rate service and others make you wonder how they remain in business.

As for  the bike I believe that you may have bent valves depending on where the back half of the cam stopped.  If there was a valve open then it may have been bent.  Should be able to check for a bent valve by removing the cam and doing a cylinder leakdown test.  If you have damaged valves you can appraise  subsequent piston damage after you remove the head.  I would be trying to determine why the cam broke before I slapped another one in and ran it too hard.

Good luck.

[TheSpadMan]

That very thing happened to me, on my way to the Hoot. Had the bike towed to HondaStealer in Kingsport where it stayed for 3 months. Between the stealer and honda mother company it was fixed, finally.  Explained to me that the cam was a bad casting and was common to Valkyries only Any way I have put another 7k on it since and No Prblems. So far