[AzCal Retred]

On my 2002 350ES the PO used improper excessively thick shims on the idler gears, eating into the case aluminum, which I found when I tried to pull off the timing cover. Aluminum case shreds had locked into the lubrication annular groves, preventing the cover from sliding off the shafts. Using VERY judicious tapping on the covers handy alloy ear and a stack of plastic wedges cut from a milk jug and a wooden handle to pry (again, judiciously... ) on the oil filter housing end, I was eventually able to kedge the cover off and start clean up.

New cover gaskets & a variety of shims are on order. There seems to be only one cover gasket available now, but at least two thicknesses of shim. So far what I've found by searching the Forum is to stack on some shims on a gear, screw the cover on and see if it drags more when you pull it thru with the kicker; if it does, pop off the cover & adjust, check again. Seems pretty arbitrary.
Has anyone tried "Plastigage" in this application? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastigauge )

A second question is about the idler bushes; stock are steel, H's offer bronze ones, but how bad do they need to be before they affect running? Is it just noise, or does it make the timing noticeably erratic? There obviously has to be interplay between these bushings & proper shimming.

Thanks for any wisdom/hints/examples - ACR -

[Paul W]

When I first removed the timing cover of my 350 I was surprised to find two shims on the exhaust cam and none on the inlet. I've never understood why, except a factory error. I put it back as it came but have often wondered about it.

Next time it's apart I might just fit one shim on each.

[AzCal Retred]

Gawd Bless the PO's....he sure made enough of them. The oil pump spindle was jerky in action, wedging at irregular intervals when rotated by finger pressure. Shaking the timing cover produced a knocking sound...it was definitely coming apart for a look-see. Inside I find nice brass high-dollar Hitchcocks HV oil pumps...with the scavenge pump just floating there, installed with no oil pump spring pad or oil pump spring. But the gaskets were definitely glued on reeel hard, apparently as compensation. Amazingly it wasn't wet sumping...?

The moral of the tale is to assume the PO was an eejit and check everything important yourself. Some wit here declared that Bullets were "Legos for adults". Luckily for Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen and Lego, people don't ride his Danish creations in traffic or on mountain roads. Maybe some Bullet owners should stick to Legos. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego )

Anyway, just more business for Allan H., eh?      "Onward, ever onward..." 

( https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/kb135.htm )   
Egads! Who would have ever suspected that particular quote came from those folks? { Vorwärts, immer vorwärts! Walter Menningen}

[Karl Childers]

I have yet to get into the timing chest of my bike but looking at pictures I get the basic idea. So do I understand right that the shims don't effect the gear lash but are there to keep each gear in alignment with the corresponding gears? If that is the case and factory machine tolerances are not exact would that account for a gear having one shim while another has none or two? This makes me wonder if a simple straight edge is used in the process. Does this also account for someone getting it right but at that point as in the case of ACR's bike the gear cluster is raised too much causing the interference with the case? Maybe an offending too thick gear would have to be machined down so less shims are needed for the others? I'm sure sooner or later I will have my motor apart so I'm trying to learn from this.

[cyrusb]

I have yet to get into the timing chest of my bike but looking at pictures I get the basic idea. So do I understand right that the shims don't effect the gear lash but are there to keep each gear in alignment with the corresponding gears? If that is the case and factory machine tolerances are not exact would that account for a gear having one shim while another has none or two? This makes me wonder if a simple straight edge is used in the process. Does this also account for someone getting it right but at that point as in the case of ACR's bike the gear cluster is raised too much causing the interference with the case? Maybe an offending too thick gear would have to be machined down so less shims are needed for the others? I'm sure sooner or later I will have my motor apart so I'm trying to learn from this.

Sounds like you have the right idea with the straight edge method. Plastigauge may work also (is it still available?). Just be sure to include the gasket when you are taking the measurements.

[AzCal Retred]

The concept here is the cover traps the gears in place on their shafts. Axial runout is accomplished via shims, radial runout is via bushes. I have removed the oil pump worm shaft, so I can easily fit up the cover onto the cam & idler shafts. Alignment of the idler gears doesn't seem to be critical as they just spin the distributor. The cam gear axial endplay appears to still be proper, I'll see if I can get some base axial runout numbers from that. I'll use the shim selection from H's and Plastigauge to try to replicate that number. Failing that, perhaps an arbitrary 0.010" - 0.020" endplay will work out. The bushes seem OK at this point. The cover will be off & on quite a bit, but I think Ace mentioned in the wayback that there were "Fitters" at RE Chennai that hand-fitted each idle & cam gear's endplay via shim washers. Once I get the end play on each gear about the same on the Plastigauge, I'll reassemble with the pump wormshaft and see if it all still works.  As the whole soggy mess was "working" even when screwed up and eating into the aluminum case, anything I do is likely an improvement...

[cyrusb]

Just thinking that the endplay of the gears may be out of range for plastigauge. Perhaps a little modeling clay would give a good ballpark figure. .020" sounds about right.

[AzCal Retred]

Good point that. The fit-up operation seems to stop about the time the idler shafts start to engage. There seems to be a lip, or at least a lack of taper on one idler shaft. I'm working on it with a stone to remove the burr. I'll likely get some Prussian blue in there as well to see which idler shaft is rubbing inside its hole in the timing cover & where. I'm limited on shim sizes, around 0.020 sounds like a reasonable goal.

[mrunderhill1975a]

I seem to recall ACE saying something about the aftermarket timing cover gaskets being thinner than the original, thus, after rebuild the cover can pinch the shims & timing gears.  So, I think you need to check both the thickness of the shim as well as gasket (or gasket sealant).  As usual, there may be several causes for clearance problems.

[AzCal Retred]

Each one will need to be set to the gasket I get. The damage is unlikely to be uniform in any event, so we're back to hand fitting. The clay/wax/Plastgage ideer seems the best course forward at this time.

[Adrian II]

I seem to recall ACE saying something about the aftermarket timing cover gaskets being thinner than the original, thus, after rebuild the cover can pinch the shims & timing gears.  So, I think you need to check both the thickness of the shim as well as gasket (or gasket sealant).  As usual, there may be several causes for clearance problems.

YES! watch out for the green ones.

A.

[AzCal Retred]

A bit of luck today. The Prussian blue I happened to get was the non-drying kind, so it was a lot like finger painting but with no visible results. Black Magic Marker might have been a better choice. In any event, tapping it on and off (gingerly... ) with my trusty rubber mallet had got the cover a bit further each time, so I just added a bit of grease to the process and continued on. About the 10th time I was able to get 75% on and still rock it back off with finger pressure. Another 10 times and I had struck cover to gasket, and still could pry it back off with finger pressure, so time to quit. I'm not seeing any scoring inside the cover's various shaft holes, so maybe it just needed to make its own elbow room. Now to find some modeling clay or canning wax. H's says the shim collection should show up maybe Saturday or Monday.

Cam timing when checked earlier was standard. I'm thinking that a 3-position cam-drive gear might be a good thing to install at it's +4.5 degree setting. The motor seems pretty limp, but compression is in the OK range at 110 - 115 PSI by my gauge. I'm a slogger, not a gut-wringer rider, moving what little grunt there is to the lower end of the rev range won't hurt me any. Ace in a post a few years back suggested on the 350  leaving off the base gasket and lapping in the head to liven things up a bit, it sure couldn't hurt any. I'll be popping off the top end soon to check as to what piston is installed, maybe then I can apply the "race tech" fix.

In any event, some incremental progress. - ACR -

[Adrian II]

Bullet Whisperer recently found out that Indian Bullet barrels - iron or after-market alumin(i)um - are 2mm longer than their Redditch counterparts. Just losing 2mm off the cylinder base flange should help liven things up a little.

The go-to piston for tuning up a 350 Bullet on it's original bore is the Meteor Minor Sports piston, part # 45376.

[AzCal Retred]

Thanks for the barrel height tip & parts xref! 

[Paul W]

Hoping soon to fit the MM piston I recently bought; I’m intrigued to find out what difference it will make to my 350. I don’t intend to alter the barrel height at this stage because it already has 130 psi cranking pressure and I don’t want to overdo it.

I’ll probably check the shimming at the same time.