Smoky Predy rebuild - cam timing Q

[roscoe]

Last fall my 04 Predator started smoking worse than my friends Banshee (which smokes a lot even for a banshee). Started fine, ran fine but smoked enough to make the inside of the exhaust pipe wet. Tore top end apart and no broken rings or scored cylinder. Hmm. Has anyone else experienced this?

The cylinder was visibly worn at the top of the stroke so i decided with the advice of a recommended local shop to replate the cylinder (stock size bore) and go with a wiseco hi-compression piston. I lapped the valves and replaced the valve seals... there was some play between the valve stems and guides, but hopefully not excessive.

Now my question is can anybody explain the process to retime the cams when reassembling? I've heard you have to take the clutch cover off and line the gold link in the cam chain up with a mark on the crank gear then the other gold teeth line up on the cam gears. Is there any way to get around this without taking the clutch cover off?

Its got an HMF pipe and Rath headers. Also got a foam air filter as this 'will keep out more mud and water' than just a k&n filter and i would rather have longer engine life than that last 3% of power increase.
Any suggestions on jet sizes? That is next after engine is together and we get a warm (er) day.

Thanks for any help!
-Roscoe

[LEOGM5150]

with out removing the clutch cover you must make sure your engine is at top dead center, by putting a rod or screw driver down the spark plug hole and rotating the engine slowly by hand until the piston is at it's highest point. then looking throught the site hole in the flywheel cover to make sure that it is also showing top dead center. the t on the flywheel should line up with the little v in the top of the sight hole. then comes the important part lining up the dots on the cams. i will post a picture to help with this one as it is hard to explain. i also sell a polaris predator rebuild dvd that covers all of this and everything else to rebuild your predator engine and tranny for $20 shipped. if you are interested in a copy please pm me. i hope this info helps

[LEOGM5150]

also i forgot to mention a servie repair manual is also helpful here is a picture from it. they are on sale on ebay for cheap.

[roscoe]

Hey thanks for the info! That is helpful, saves me from having to take the clutch cover off. I don't know why Polaris doesn't just use the T mark on the flywheel in their instructions. Guess they have to dummyify instructions and a gold link and a dot are pretty easy haha :rolleyes:

I got things back together up to the point of putting the head on but before cams go in i have to get some different shims.

-Roscoe

[LEOGM5150]

the only problem with only checking to see if the flywheel is lined up is that if you have sheared off the flywheel key then the timing will be off so to double check either put the rod or screwdriver down the plug hole to double check the tdc mark or take off the flywheel nut and look and make sure the flywheel key is lined up with the key way and not sheared off. just another thing to keep in mind because being just one or 2 teeth off on the timing can mean total destruction.