Worst nightmare?

[MikeFossl]

After the first half of our 4000 mile road trip I was checking the valve clearance and found a piece of a pin (.5 mm dia 2 mm long) and some alu flakes in the right cylinder valve cover.

Engine was running fine but I'm obviously concerned.  Any suggestions?

[Bob_Roller]

Is the pin aluminum, or steel ??

[MikeFossl]

Steel pin, aluminum flakes...

[Bob_Roller]

Only thing I can think of, is the needle bearing in one of the rocker arms has cracked in the flange and the individual needles are getting out .
Had this happen on my '81 R65 .
Aluminum flakes, I have no idea .

[Barry]

If it's really 0.5mm in diameter surely that is too small to be from a needle bearing. That is smaller than a common pin or a small sewing needle. Anyone know the actual size of the needle bearing rollers  ?

I recently used a 0.5mm drill so I can visualize the size of it which was handy as I couldn't even see the drill without my glasses.

BTW very impressive photo of something that size.

[MikeFossl]

The pin, in fact, is 1.5 mm in dia and the flakes are probably steel.  Here are the pictures of the rocker.

My plan is to take the whole thing to the nearest bmw dealer to get whatever parts I need.

[Bob_Roller]

Mike, if things don't go too well with acquiring your needed parts from the local dealer  in a timely manner, I can pull them from my '84 LS 'parts bike ' and get them to you tomorrow morning .
As long as I get the parts back when you get home .
Sounds like you may be in the Tucson area, that's only an hour and a half drive for me .

[MikeFossl]

Thanks for the offer.  The local dealer will have the parts ready Tuesday which works for us.  Now we can watch football tomorrow!

[Bob_Roller]

sounds good, who is the dealer, Ironhorse BMW in Tucson

[Bob_Roller]

Just a thought here, if by chance you are replacing the rocker arm, the replacement is a little different from the one you have .
There should be a greenish plastic plug on one end of the arm, you may have to add shims to take up the end play on the new rocker arm, it's usually a bit shorter than the original .
When I replaced my rocker arm when I had the same situation as you have now, I had .8 mm of  free play of the rocker arm between the two blocks on each end of the rocker arm .
Item # 11 on this parts view .

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=0364&mospid=51897&btnr=11_1788&hg=11&fg=34

[MikeFossl]

I'm just replacing the bearings.  Iron horse is the dealer and the're installing the bearings onto my rocker arm.  They said the'll have it ready for me to install on Tuesday morning.

[MikeFossl]

Rocker arm is back on the bike.  It was a little stiff after I torqued down the head nuts but after a short ride it was all good.  Just ran from Tucson to Phoenix and the bike is running like a champ.

[Bob_Roller]

Good to hear you got it repaired quickly and a minimal amount hassle, being on the road a long way from home !!!!

[nhmaf]

YAY!

Here to a trouble free, remainder of your ride!

After you finish the trip, might be a good idea to look closely at the other rockers and head in case  another of those pesky needle bearings is trying to escape -

[castledener]

Did you replace all of the needle bearings ?I found the same problem but not as severe on my 1980 r65.Three of the four bearings the cage was breaking up on the end and the rollers were visible.This problem I found by chance during a top end strip.I had to replace them all.My 65 has only 37500 miles on the clock.