R1 Engine Head replaced

Today I worked on installing a good used R1 engine head I bought on ebay for a good deal. It came complete with the valves, camshafts and cover. The cool thing is that it came out of a younger bike with only 7000 miles.

You could see from a previous blog post why I needed to replace the R1 engine head.

Anyway, since I got the engine separated from the bike for a good while I took a little peptalk to myself to get started on this rather big job. The thing is, at the same time, I am making use of this opportunity to basically to a complete R1 overhauling. I already painted my rims orange, and I will be painting my R1 fairing in gunbattle grey. In a future blog post I will show how I am doing that and with what paint (you will laugh).

While I had the right side engine cover off to reach to the crankshaft bolt to adjust the camshaft chain, wow, guess what I found? A good size broken piece of a cam lifter! It was so big it couldn't go anywhere. I was from that spot that the oil falls down to the carter, but there is a big sprocket in the way, so anything that hits that either grinds it, or messes up that sprocket or internals....

I got the engine head cover on, so I am happy I got that out of the way. Next will be removing the throttlebody from the old engine head, clean that up and mount it on the engine.

I am here thinking how on earth I am going to get that engine back in the bike, me by myself, finding a way to get the engine off the ground only about like 6 inches (that's the challenge) and slide the two top engine mounting bolts in.... I am not sure yet how I'm going to do that.
The other challenge I had, is the engine head bolts, I have no torque wrench so I guessed a bit in tightening the bolts, and the next challenge/worry, is that I reused the gasket. I am just blogging all what I remember what's on my mind.