Bob's Oil Mod

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Bob's Oil Mod Landry/Schoeb, Sydness-Style

Feb 2001. After you have read all of the articles on the net about Oil Mods, Contact Dave Dodge for advice, parts, info, etc. Dave modifies V-series Hondas for a living, and is a highly recommended supplier of stock and modified parts, machine shop work including engine and tranny rebuilds, etc.

Background:

This article assumes the reader has an understanding of the top end oiling problem that exists on some of the mid 80s Honda Sabres and Magnas. Robyn Lander has a good selection of articles on the history of this problem and the I suggest you visit Robyn Lander's V4 Pages for background information.

It appears the Honda may have done a number of modifications to the Magna (and probably the Sabre) over the years to alleviate this problem. A perusal of the parts fiche shows a number of parts changes to the head oiling system.

Cylinder head oil supply line changed in 83 and 85

External head banjo bolt changed in 83

Transmission banjo bolt changed in 83 and 85

Internal oil pipe in head changed in 85

Camshaft holders changed in 82, 82-83, 83-84, 85

Camshafts changed in 82, 82-83,83, 83-84, 85

Honda switched to line bored cams in the 86 model year. A number of oil system parts did not change.

Not all of these changes may have been to fix the oil starvation problem, but a number of these changes were probably done to address this problem. I have been told there is a published photograph of a Honda factory race bike that appears to have a similar modification. A banjo fitting is partly visible under the right side of the engine and a braided oil line runs up to a Y fitting with lines to the front and rear heads.

I started by removing the tank, coils, etc for the annual winter maintenance, then removed the rear valve cover and gave the cams a once over. There was previous discoloration and some scoring on the cams and bearing journals the last time I adjusted the valves, this did not appear to have changed much at all in the last 10k kms, nor has it changed much in the last 4 years. Previously I had modified the transmission banjo bolt to increase the oil flow. See Robyn Lander's V4 Pages for details about Phil Rastocny's Do-It-Yourself V4 Oil System Modifications.

I decided to do the Landry/Schoeb full tubing mod as done by Brian Sydness . See my web page for details.

Started pulling the carbs as I didn't want to cut up the existing oil pipe at first, and I haven't have the carbs off for a cleaning since I bought the bike in 94.

Clymers states you have to remove the cooling crossover pipes and tells you to move the carbs to the right to undo the choke and throttle cables. This is somewhat incorrect. You can remove the carbs from the left side WITHOUT removing the coolant pipes. Getting the cables off was a little bit more difficult though. I DID however have to remove the radiator to undo the screws holding the heatshield to the airbox. The clymer's I have shows removing the rear plug wires from clamps on the heat shield. The clamps they are referring to are on the rad side of the FRONT heat shield and the only easy way to remove the wires from the clamps is to pull the radiator.

I would have pulled the rad anyway so I could check and adjust the front valves.

To get the carbs out of the boots easily, I slipped a screwdriver between the carb boot and the carb body and squirted spray silicone lube on each side of the screwdriver, waited 10 min and the carbs popped out of the rear and front boots with hardly any effort. The carbs would not come out with the heatshield attached, there was no room to easily turn them with the sheild attached. I guess that is why the manual suggests loosening the engine mounting bolts.

The exhaust system came off easily. Both front clamps hung up on the inner bolts due to dirt collecting around the bolt for many years. Gentle tapping and prying dropped the clamps. Both the side and bottom bolts holding the collector to the engine were missing. A couple of shots of WD40 helped the collector drop off the rear pipes with a 15 min wait and a little rocking. No brute force, 2x4s or incantations required.

Pulled the clutch cover and it came off easily without damaging the gasket!!!! 20$ saving here!!!! Pulled out the oil gallery plug and stuffed a plastic wrapped wadded up paper towel in the gallery. Guarenteed no lint or bits of stuff left in the oil gallery. With the bike on the side stand I used a bottle jack under the frame below the swingarm pivot on the right side to lift up the bike so I could easily drill a hole in the boss under the oil gallery.

I centerpunched the boss and drilled a 1/8" pilot hole and the drilled out to 5/16". I shallow tapped for 1/8" pipe and trial fitted the 90 degree 1/8" pipe - 5/16" compression elbow. Had to retap twice until I had the fitting as close to the boss as I could get it. Much easier to tap deeper on the second or third trial fit than to go too deep the first time. I used a vacum cleaner to get rid of most of the chips initially and then cleaned, cleaned and cleaned again with rags, alcohol wipes and Q-tips to get all the chips out then pulled the plug from the gallery and vacumed and cleaned a couple of more times. Don't scrimp on the cleaning, there is no place for drilling/cutting chips in the supply side of the oil system, can you say goodbye to a main bearing or worse. Put a couple of turns of teflon tape on the elbow and screwed it in place.

Reinstalled the clutch cover, brake lever and the footpeg bracket.

Bent and test fitted one piece of tubing to get the length and angles correct. OK. Now start with a new piece as I am using the inverse flare end to connect to the T fitting that will sit in the V in front of the chromed crossover pipe. Much easier to work backwards down to the compression elbow when you have a pattern to follow. Good, everything fits and lines up.

I cut off the banjo fittings with as long a piece of tubing as I could. It is possible to use the original lines with the banjo fittings to run from the T to both heads. The rear banjo has enough pipe to reach the T when installed on the front head and the transmission banjo fitting has barely enough tubing to reach from the rear head to the T fitting. Don't bother tho. It is almost impossible to straighten the transmission feed line without kinking it.

I cut the banjo fittings off the pipe, and drilled them out to 5/16" leaving a shoulder so the tubing did not go right thru into the large hole in the banjo fitting. I enlarged the hole thru the shoulder with a 1/4" drill which matches the inside diameter of the 5/16" brake line tubing, this is to eliminate any restriction of the oil supply to the head.

I bent and cut the two pieces of tubing to go from the T to each banjo fitting. Marked the alignment of the tube to the banjo fitting and sweat soldered the fitting with rosin core solder to the tube. The short tube from the front head connects to the T with an inverse flare adapter and the tube from the rear head connects to the T with a compression fitting. I could have used an inverse flare adapter for the long pipe from the rear head, but I already bought the compression fitting so I used it. If it develops a leak, I will redo the rear pipe with a inverse flare fitting on one end of the tube.

Pictures:

The pictures were taken at various stages of fabrication, before everything was painted satin black.

View from Right Side

Materials:

1 Brass 1/8" pipe thread T fitting 1.89

1 " 1/8" pipe thread to 5/16" compression 90 deg elbow 1.99

2 " 5/16" inverse flare to 1/8"pipe adapter 2.49

1 " 1/8" pipe to 5/16" compression adapter straight. 1.25

1 20" x5/16" brake line 3.09

1 48" x 5/15" brake line 4.49

1 54" x5/16" brake line 5.49 **

5 10mm alloy crush washer (BMW part) 0.20 each 1.00

I probably won't use these washers as I am reusing the old ones which are in good condition. They are thinner than the honda parts and have a smaller OD. They do fit and will work tho and cost much less!!

Loctite 242, transmission blanking bolt, teflon tape, etc were from the workshop.

Total materials cost is less than $25 Cdn.

** Not required only used for trial bending.

Lots of labour though. I spent lots of time bending and trial fitting tubing. At first I tried a run across the front of the engine and up along the curved chrome coolant pipe on the left side. Couldn't do it with one piece of tubing that would be removable. It did look the best. I made a T fitting very similar to the type Honda used, took lots of time, and it almost plugged with solder when I tried to solder the branch into the sleeve. I wonder how many went into the scrap bin at the factory!!!

If you have the time, tools and the skills, go for the tubing method, it's very satisfying work, and the cost is low, excluding time. The easiest way is to buy an adapter kit with two AN4 lines and install it in a 3-4 hours, or less. I tried one of the 1 1/4" thick older style adapters and I could not get the filter on it. Now this is on a 1984 V45 Canadian model. I can't judge any others and there are different exhaust collectors for the model years, 82-83, 84, 85, 86 of the Vf750C. I don't know about the VF700Cs in the US so!!!!!!!!!!!!! The newest thinner adapters from Dale Walker's Holeshot Performance should work no problem on ANY of the mid 80's V4 engines.

Banjo Bolt Modification:

I had marked the sharkfin banjo bolts and one fin was almost aimed straight at the oil port on the banjo fitting. I filed rounded notches in the three fins just below the shoulder and centered on the banjo fitting on both bolts. This doesn't weaken the banjo bolt as the shank is larger in diameter than the thread. There is enough play in the fit of the bolt to the banjo fitting that the oil flow could be severly restricted if the oil port side of the banjo fitting is offset towards the center of the bolt when the fitting is tightened down.

The cams in Maggie do not apprear to be the original ones. There are tool marks in the chromed rocker arm bolts, and the ends of the cams are closed without any obvious welding.

Cleaning.

Clean the inside of all the pipes and fitting before the final installation. Heavy duty brake cleaner is recommended along with compressed air to blow out any bits left from drilling the banjo fittings and deburring the cut ends of the steel tubing. Any bits of stuff left in the plumbing will end up in some small oil ways in the heads, and may block the oil flow or end up in the bearings with disasterous consequences.

I assembled the three pieces of tubing and the T fitting off the bike and painted it with satin black trim paint. Turned out very nice.

Testing:

By turning the engine over with the valve covers off, the observed oil flow on the front head is much better to all the cams than it was before I started this project. The oil flow to 3 of the 4 cams in the rear head is only somewhat better. I suspect there may be some sort of internal restrictor as the rear head used to be closest to the oil supply takeoff and now it is further as the oil supply line comes from the right side of the engine.

I removed the banjo bolt on the internal oil feed lines at #1 cylinder where the external line attaches. Then I blanked the hole in the top of the banjo fitting with my thumb and a shop rag and hit the starter button. I noticed an improvement in the oil flow at two of the three cams in the rear head. There was almost a excess of oil around the cam lobe on #3 intake. #1 exhaust was much wetter , but #3 exhaust was a little better, but not much.

It appears that the banjo bolts on the internal oil lines can have a major effect on the oil flow patterns in the head.

As documented and tested by Erik Kauppi on his Oil Mod Page, I pulled the #3 exhaust cam bearing which had the lowest oil flow and drilled out the oil port fron 0.050" to 1/16" which is about three thou more than Erik's 0.060". Oil flow from the #3 exhaust cam bearing increased noticably. It is tempting to reduce the diameter of the oil tube banjo bolt in the #1 intake banjo fitting, but reducing it too much may be tempting fate. I wouldn't want it to snap off and starve all the cam bearings for oil, ruining the engine.

I am going to leave the modifications as they are and will examine everything the next time the valves need an adjustment.

Real world testing. The oil mod is working fine. Lots of miles in three weeks and no oil leaks or seepage.

Update Spring 98.

Oil presures are within norms.

I checked the oil flow while I was adjusting the valves by turning the engine over on the starter. There was a very noticeable difference in the flow between the front and rear heads. I fabricated a restrictor for the front pipe from an inch long piece of the original factory tubing. I filed it down on the outside until it was a tight push fit in the 5/16" tubing. This reduced the oil flow to the front head a notieable amount and it appears similar to the rear head. Time to go riding.

Second Update April 2000

Well after 2 years and over 25,000 miles since the oil mod, the cams still look fine. I compared them to pictures I took when I did the oil mod and there is some signs of general wear, but no more scoring and discoloration than 2 years ago and no evidence of any pitting. I have replaced both cam chain tensioners as they were both worn to the point where they would not tension the chains properly. These are the only internal engine parts I have had to replace.

Third Update Feb 2001

40k miles and the cams are looking good, oil pressure is still in spec. Getting ready for another riding season.

Recomendations:

Do an oil mod. If you have an 82-85 V4, there is enough crud suspended in the unfiltered oil supply from the transmission to damage both the cam bearings and the cam lobes without the possible oil starvation problem that may eventually destroy the cam lobes and followers. The 86 Magnas with line bored cams may have a different internal oil supply routing using filtered oil, I don't know. If you find scoring on the cam bearings It would be interesting to do some research on the oil supply to the cams and install an oil mod to supply the cams with filtered oil if necessary.

I have no pitting on my cams, just a little discoloration and a little scoring on the lobes from the crud in unfiltered oil. There is very noticeable scoring on the cam bearing journals from the crud. If your cams are in good condition, an oil mod is even more important because you will ensure the long life of your existing cams. Don't bother having your cams redone unless you do an oil mod, cause your new cams will suffer the same fate.

Caveat emptor, If you don't know what your doing, get help from or hire someone who does, like Dave Dodge . Otherwise you will be getting your engine rebuilt or replaced!!!!!