[dginfw]

A fellow from the neighborhood (not a forum member) has a GT that he has slowly been upgrading for performance (exhaust,  K&N,  PC-V) he recently added Hitchcocks cams and that's where the trouble started.  A lot of noise persuaded him to take it back , and when the side cover finally came off the motor, it was found that a couple of teeth on the exhaust cam had broken off. The cam looked discolored, possibly from heat. ..a lot if heat, as the eccentric adjustment spindle fused itself to the inner stud/perch thingee.   I think the cam lash was not properly set IMO  . I know there were some bad cams that came out but supposedly that issue was addressed before he bought his cams.  At any rate, no one is accepting blame, but RE USA is in contact with him...not sure what will transpire there, as I recently got in this loop when I reached out to help him.
I told him I'd help if his issue wasn't resolved  (or as a local shop told him, $800 to CUT the bad spindle off and replace ) so my question for those that have torn that far into the UCE motors, is there a removal tool for the inner spindle? I have seen them for the iron barrel motors, but most sellers do not specifically state "UCE". Hitchcocks has 2 listed, one for iron barrel motors and one for "electra's".  Wonder if the Electra one would work on uce spindles? If not,  the threads on the end of the spindle for the lock nuts appear to be intact. Would a modified slide hammer pull the spindle out if the case were gently heated ?
Any one ever seen such damage on a cam spindle?

[ace.cafe]

An AVL(Electra) spindle puller should do it. You heat up the case around the spindles with a torch. Obviously all the oil needs to be cleaned off first, so it doesn't catch fire.

The person who mentioned "cutting it off" obviously has no familiarity with Enfield engines, and has no business doing anything in that engine at all.

I have heard a couple of other people have similar problems with the Hitchcocks cams.

[gashousegorilla]

  Wow !   Ah... yeah . I kinda heard something as well .       Fortunately it didn't progress to THAT stage.  A sharp gentleman  that I know , KNEW something was up right away once they were fitted.   And THAT dealer should have listened to that motor AND his customer !    If.. he didn't, that is  .   I think i'd try to get those eccentric sleeves off of those spindles fist, before trying to pull the spindles out... might get lucky and the spindles underneath the sleeves are still good.    In a normal situation... once those lock nuts are removed off the end of the spindles, the  sleeves will slide right off.

  Cut the spindles out ?!   Jack ass.....


   I would also measure the diameter of the stock Cams gears vs those HC Cam gears.   The UCE motor has TWO different size gears.  On every UCE Cam set I have ever seen, this is the case.  The Intake gear being the larger of the two.... 

[Otto_Ing]

As I understand it, it´s the eccentric shaft which is friction/heat welded to the axle (spindle). "IF" the eccentric shaft can not be removed from the spindle, "THAN" a replacement of the whole axle shaft assembly will be required with the method as ACE sugested. (Heating the casing.... )

Before doing that, I would try anything possible to just replace the eccentric shaft and keeping the axle in the housing.

I see the bushing came out on the intake cam as well.

[Jako]

  . I know there were some bad cams that came out but supposedly that issue was addressed before he bought his cams. 

.

Any idea if these cams were purchased directly from Hitchcock's and when they were purchased ?  I purchased 2 sets of cams from Hitchcock's last week and planned to install a set in my bike next week, the other set were going into my brothers  new GT as soon as the break in  period is completed . Got me worried now . Were the gears noisy from the beginning  or did it develop over time ? Maybe the same guy that plans to cut the spindles off also set the backlash .

[Bullet Whisperer]

I have nothing to gain by defending Hitchcocks, but ...
 My only experience with the Hitchcock cams [for the UCE] was when I fitted a set to one of my customers' 535 CGT machines. I oiled everything prior to assembly and, as advised in the instructions, I slacked off the eccentric spindles to ease the fitting procedure and carefully adjusted them for minimal backlash afterwards. Within 5 miles of running time, after reassembly, I was doing over 90 mph with them inside the engine. That was over a month ago, the owner does fairly large mileages and all I have heard is that he is very happy.
 As seen before ...
 https://youtu.be/iO00SldM1J4
 B.W.

[dginfw]

.

Any idea if these cams were purchased directly from Hitchcock's and when they were purchased ?  I purchased 2 sets of cams from Hitchcock's last week and planned to install a set in my bike next week, the other set were going into my brothers  new GT as soon as the break in  period is completed . Got me worried now . Were the gears noisy from the beginning  or did it develop over time ? Maybe the same guy that plans to cut the spindles off also set the backlash .

He bought them about 2 months ago, I believe...bike has been down for at least a month.
You can measure the cams. The intake cam should be 2mm bigger than the exhaust cam. As I understand, some of the bad ones had both the same size which cause excess pressure.  Some say you can roll them together by hand to check for irregularities in the teeth...my hands are not that calibrated lol

[gashousegorilla]

I have nothing to gain by defending Hitchcocks, but ...
 My only experience with the Hitchcock cams [for the UCE] was when I fitted a set to one of my customers' 535 CGT machines. I oiled everything prior to assembly and, as advised in the instructions, I slacked off the eccentric spindles to ease the fitting procedure and carefully adjusted them for minimal backlash afterwards. Within 5 miles of running time, after reassembly, I was doing over 90 mph with them inside the engine. That was over a month ago, the owner does fairly large mileages and all I have heard is that he is very happy.
 As seen before ...
 https://youtu.be/iO00SldM1J4
 B.W.

 They had a bad batch of them last winter.  The situation was reported to them, and they checked it out independently  themselves on there own bike ,with a set of Cams they had there in stock. Before ordering a set from HC, I would just confirm with them that everything is good with the new batch.    Again, this was last winter and they said it would take about 8 weeks to get a new batch in.  They were very decent about the situation I must say...

[Jako]

I just contacted Hitchcock's with a few questions regarding there cam quality before installing mine , there reply has eased my concerns .  see there reply below

Hi Dale,

 

We did have a small batch of cams last year where the profile of the teeth was not finished as we had specified and this did cause them to run louder than we would of liked. We were notified of this very early on and took them off our shelf and had the cams back. These have no relation to the cams we have sold since and they actually now come from a different manufacturer and the quality and consistency is excellent. We have sold and fitted many sets of these since and have racked up many miles on our own test bikes on the road and on the dyno.

 

Unfortunately once we send a part out it is out of our hands on how it gets fitted, we try to make it very clear in the instructions on potential problems but sometimes these get overlooked. On this part it really is important to set sufficient backlash between each cam gear against one another, against the splines on the crankshaft and to turn it over to check in various positions. We try to highlight this in the instructions and to make it as clear as possible but there is only so much we can do before the responsibility lies with the person fitting. We have seen failures on these engines in the same way with the original cams but again this wasn’t down to the Indian cams being problematic just that they were not adjusted correctly.

 

We are very happy with how the cams are and have no cause for concern, as long as the instructions are followed there should be no problems and you should be very happy with the performance gains. We have sold hundreds of these cams now but unfortunately, as with most things you don’t hear from the people who have no issues and are happy. 

 

 

Best regards,

Dan

Hitchcock's Motorcycles Ltd.

[Narada]

I had one of those bad sets from Hitchcocks last August and the gear teeth were so badly made that they had visible excess material hanging off. You could see it and feel it on most every tooth.

Having never installed motorcycle cams, I put them in without thinking much about them. I had a lot of trouble with the adjustment but got the motor together. I almost had a heart attack when it started. It was so horribly loud!

I tore it all down, found the excess material and used a "pencil grinder" to clean up and polish every tooth. Just on the ends, not the gear contact surface, so the gears could easily slide in and out as well as have a little clearance with each other during adjustment.

Still I had to keep re-adjusting at every tooth because they were cut completely wrong and were not consistantly spaced with each other.

I tried twice more to re-adjust and run the engine but those cams were completely defective and unusable.

When I contacted Hitchcocks they already knew the batch was bad but for some reason never told me. They advised me not to install them or run my engine with them in it. I got a complete refund and had to go back to stock cams.

After watching me go through this protracted and tortuous experience only to find that no one else on earth (as far as I could tell) had hi-po UCE cams for sale, GHG actually took his own cams out of his bike and made me a set of copies to go with the rest of my GHG/SB UCE for which I will be eternally grateful.

I had been wondering how Hitchcocks new batch of cams was coming along. They seem to think they're good.

Your friend may have somehow gotten a set from my old batch. I wonder if H destroyed all of the bad ones or maybe a pair got back out the door again? Maybe the cams were good but adjusted too tight?

Even after I cleaned the ends of every gear tooth, and thoroughly checked the adjustment, they were so loud it was unthinkable to run the engine for more than a few seconds.

It's a shame those spindles turned blue like that. There must have been a lot of friction and consequently, noise?

He may be able to get away with using the spindles, with new eccentrics, if they clean up nicely but there is the risk that they may just break off one day too.

If replaced how would you know they are straight and true? If crooked, the gear teeth would be mis-alighned and cause more problems. Is this something that is sometimes done? If paying someone else to do it, I would look for someone experienced with this process.

As a former shipyard boilermaker, I have been employed to use my torch to heat large machine parts to expand them while the inner part was wrapped in rags with dry ice. It worked very well. Sounds like the same process but with smaller parts.

[gashousegorilla]

After watching me go through this protracted and tortuous experience only to find that no one else on earth (as far as I could tell) had hi-po UCE cams for sale, GHG actually took his own cams out of his bike and made me a set of copies to go with the rest of my GHG/SB UCE for which I will be eternally grateful.

   TO SAY THE LEAST !!!   YOU.. went above and beyond trying to get those Mis-made HC Cams to work !   NICE job yourself !   And sorry about my confusion over when you got them... Summer Vs  Winter ?      But that's just how long I think you banged on it ?!  Hehehehe...    Very, VERY  frustrating  for you in particular, and for the guy trying to figure what the HELL is going on with those Cams from the other side of the continent !  LOL !     

   Bare with me , I got another profile brewing in the Old Celtic compressor that I think you might like as well.  You might find it in the mail someday .    AFTER.. i'm finished testing it MYSELF that is.   But I like it so far !   Ummm... lets see here ?    250 duration at 50 thou. with about .430 lift on the intake valve.  260 duration at 50 thou. with about .450 lift at the valve on the exhaust.    With a 10.3 corn-pression ratio you are looking at about  190 psi in that cylinder with the Cams lined up straight on the marks.... for some thunderous bottom end !   Mid -range and Top end ain't too bad either now..    With a one tooth retard , your down to 150-160 psi and a ROCKET in the top end.        

[Narada]

That sounds bad-ass! A new and improved Missile!

Wait a minute... Who's the one tooth retard?!

[gashousegorilla]

  Hold on  Lemme check ?  ..... I got all MY Toofs ! 

[mattsz]

You guys know, of course, that (insert place name you wish to defame here) is where they invented the tooth brush - anywhere else and it would have been called a teeth brush...

[dginfw]

GHG, would a 10.3comp ratio be streetable on pump gas? Or would backing up the intake cam be better all-around for street use?