I liked The Thumper Page and I thought you might be amused by the following adventure(?). Feel free to add it to your thumper page if you think others will be entertained/feel some sympathy/laugh at me. It may need a little editing (for naughty words, eh vicar!) but I think that the stream of consciousness apprach works well, just let me know - Iain.

I have been pretty busy the last two weeks trying to fix my motorcycle. I just wanted to fix an oil leak but...
On an FT500 the top of the engine is a cam/valve cover that always leaks (according to Honda dealers and the "Thumper" mailing list). This is because there are no "real" cam bearings. The cam sits in plain bearings in the cylinder head and the cam cover. Therefore, there is no gasket around the cam cover. So after a little while the liquid gasket you use drys up and the cam cover leaks oil between the cover and the cylinder head. In addition, the rocker arm shafts have oil seals on the end that had also decayed after 14 years.
I have the shop manual, so I purchased all the parts I needed: rocker arm shaft oil seals, tachometer oil seal, wave washers (to spring load the rocker arms on the shafts). Plus I decided to replace the chain and sprockets and the rotting hand grip and the broken front brake lever. We get the hand grip, brake lever, chain and new sprockets on with the only problem being cleaning the disgusting mess left around the sprockets and the swingarm from years of chain lube + road dirt. I also replaced the rear brake pads - this was a little trickier because I must have cross threaded the screw that holds on the "dust cover" and we couldn't get it off. The screw now has a round hole in the end instead of a phillips cross. And so the first of many tools flew across the driveway! Also the retaining bracket for the brake line is located to prevent removal of the brake - so this required some manhandling.....
Next - off with seat, side panels and tank.
We remove all the bolts for the cam cover. But the pig won't come off.
We hammer - soft face, hard face with block of wood - my forehead. To no avail.
Then we decide to remove the valve adjuster covers....
There are two more bolts still holding the cover on!
After these were removed the cam cover (ahem!)
Now we scrape (verrrrrry carefully) the mating surfaces clean of any old gasket material (there wasn't much left - hence the oil leaking). Then we try to remove the dowel pins that hold the rocker arm shafts in place.
This brilliant piece of design does not allow access to both ends of the dowel so one could push the pin out. Instead the Honda manual says to use a grinder to cut a notch into the side of the pin and chisel it out with a screwdriver! - a little crude. Not having a grinder (and if I did have one it would have to have a very small wheel due to space restrictions around the dowel pin + the risk of grinding away the mating surfaces of the cam cover...) I tried to chisel it out (with a chisel). This is a very poor idea because I simply removed bits of the dowel pin in little shavings.
Next attempt was a brute force pulling with vise grips. All that happened was that the dowel pins were even more chewed up. Curses....
So off to the friendly neighbourhood Honda dealer. They say OK - we'll look at it. And that is about all, they do - they can't get the pins out either and managed to do what I hadn't - damage the mating surface of the cam cover slightly. They recommend a local machine shop that specialises in motorcycles. The owner of the shop (after I explained the problem) tried to pull the pins out with pliers! - this did not work (surprise) - but he sez that they might be able to get them out somehow and to call back in a couple of days. Two days later they haven't got around to it. Three days later they haven't got around to it. Four days later... you get the picture.
Remember I'm just trying to fix a simple oil leak. I have now been without my bike for a week - but that new chain is certainly shiny. I think it is worth mentioning in passing that one of the cam lobes has little pits in it, with corresponding gouges in the rocker arm. Prices are astronomical for these little parts (approx $90 for each rocker arm, $90 for cam, $20 for each rocker arm shaft) - all too much for me.
(And another thing - the fuel line on my car breaks on the way home from the machine shop. It is just a little hole so I drive home worrying A LOT. I try to fix it before supper - but I purchase the wrong size tubing and have to do everything twice!!!!, and the power steering pump has developed a LOUD squeal from the bearings which is the least of my worries, but it startles pedestrians and other road users who have to put their hands over their ears.)
I give up - and go and retrieve the cam cover from the machine shop. The only way anything is going to happen is if I bloody do it! Meanwhile, I post a request for advice on the THUMPER internet mailing list. Lots of good advice - mostly heat with a torch and pull real hard (as the actress said to the bishop). Propane in hand, Woody and I spend two hours removing the two pins - hard work. What makes it difficult is the requirement of not damaging the cam cover - an aluminium casting slightly softer than runny camembert. So new o-ring seals and wave washers go on the rocker arms and with some swearing the rocker arm shafts are reinstalled and new dowel pins inserted (the old dowel pins are mangled beyond description - possibly they were unchanged since 1982 (14 years ago)).
Everything is cleaned and put back together. Valve adjustment is not elementary due to the adjuster screws having a coarse thread that does not lend itself to giving only 2 thou of clearance for the intake valves (the 4 thou on the exhaust proves somewhat easier). And whilst I'm thinking about it - why put such small valve adjuster covers on - so that it is not possible to get feeler gages in the gap between valve and adjuster???? One other thing - this bike has been previously owner by a butcher... Both the timing and crank access covers in the crankcase have been sealed with locktite instead of having their failed oil seal o-rings replaced (cost of o-rings approx $2 incidentally). So it is almost impossible with a flat blade screwdriver to remove these covers. Using the chisel method we get the timing port off (but not before it is heavily scarred - but the crank one will not yield. Some day I will have to drill it out and replace it (all for the cost of an o-ring!!!). So we have to put the bike in fifth gear and turn the rear wheel to find the TDC mark. All I can say about the precision of this method is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Wait 2 hours for gasket to heal. And pause for reflection... One of the 13 cam cover bolt holes already had a helicoil insert (apparently put in by a blind man - they used to long a helicoil and just tried to snip off the excess resulting in a NOT helical start to the thread and a 1/16th of an inch bit of heilcoil wire sticking straight up from the hole. Needless to say the bolt for this hole has less than perfect threads and we were very cautious applying the requisite 7 ft-lb. of torque when tightening the bolt. Meanwhile - one of the other bolts didn't look to good either - I think it was partially stripped also because when we tightened it - it would turn without the torque (indicated on the torque wrench) changing - always disturbing. However it has to be said that almost all the bolts were like this because the torque setting for the bolts is about the same torque required to squash the gasket material. This makes for very tense bolt tightening when we know some bolts are already stripped and the aluminium head is about as hard as lime jello.
Anyway - we decide that the bolt that barely tightened might be OK - despite it being the closest one to the cam bearings and therefore the most important for cam bearing clearance. Test drive time....
Replace seat, tank, side covers...
The bugger starts right up - unbelievable. It seems quite noisy - but we put that down to poor valve adjustment because we couldn't get the feeler gauges in properly. We drive around Alameda for 10 minutes.
Ouch - those valves are noisy. Get home. Take off valve adjuster covers...
OOOOOOOpppppssss. No valve adjusters in sight - or locknuts. The valve gear was noisy because the rocker arms were hitting the valves directly.
So we had about 1/2 inch instead of 2 thou clearance. We worry about losing parts into the crankcase, broken valve springs, bent valves, broken rocker arms and missing cam lobes. We wait a day...
Meanwhile Woody's car has developed a fuel injection problem so it has to spend the night at my house keeping the Ascot company in inertia.

We remove seat, tank and side covers. But we are slowly learning. This time we also remove the coil from its position obscuring the exhaust valve cover.
this makes it much easier to work on the front of the engine. We carefully remove the cam cover bolts. But not carefully enough. The bolt that we couldn't torque came out with the threads from the head stuck in the threads of the bolt. Pause for some swearing and throwing of tools. Luckily all the valve adjuster parts are retrieved and no serious damage appears to have occurred. Apparently the torque values for the valve adjuster locknuts are just a guide.... I estimate a tripling of the torque is required to achieve "locked" valve adjusters. So you see - its all a learning process.
Spend next two days trying to find a 6mm helicoil kit. Finally get one for $35!!!! ouch!. All I want to do is fix the oil leak...
I carefully install the helicoil. Scrape clean the mating surfaces.
reassemble the valve adjusters. No, wait - I forgot about one problem....
To insert the helicoil in the bolt hole nearest the cam (remember) the cam has to be removed. Being first rate idiots, we use white out to mark the position of a tooth and adjacent cam chain link so we can put things back together properly. Why are we idiots - because we forget that the number of links in the cam chain might not be an integer multiple of the number of teeth on the cam sprocket, and in removing the cam we turn the engine over a couple of times (using the aforementioned turn the rear wheel whilst in fifth method). So when we replace the cam we carefully line up the marks we made .......
One other thing - we had great trouble removing the cam because we forgot to release the cam chain tensioner. When replacing the cam we read the shop manual that explains how to do this, except the tensioner is at a point where we cannot grab the "wedges" with pliers or vice grips, so we have to lever it out using two screwdrivers and a lot of swearing and eventual cooperation between myself and woody. This job was almost as frustrating as the dowel pin removal. The wedges can only be moved over a limited range and are slippery with engine oil - no grip + limited access + strong tensioner spring = FRUSTRATION.
Everything now goes back together. Again we agonise over bolts whose torque does not increase as we turn them and we try to set valve clearances without proper feeler gage access.
Allow the gasket to dry for a day and try to start the bike the next night after work. Hmmmmm! It doesn't go (and sounds terrible turning over on the starter). I smell petrol - so I didn't leave the fuel tap off! Remove spark plug spark test shows no spark. Take tank, seat side covers off the bike. Go through electrical checks on coil, battery, alternator, pulse sender. Only one worrying thing - the shop manual shows a ground wire from the coil to the wiring harness - no sign of this on my bike.
Was it ever there? Has it fallen off? Did we damage it in our multiple dissassamblies? By now I have flattened the battery. I put it on a charger. I also remove the headlamp and check the handlebar switches. None of the connectors on this bike have been apart for many years as my chipped and broken fingernails and scuffed knuckles can attest to. Next day, as I replace the battery cell vents - one breaks in half (It now has two like this). Apparently, the vent plugs are not made of battery acid resistant material - very odd. The plastic has gone all crumbly. But now the bike starts. I traced the electrical problem to the engine kill switch. I had had it in the off position. SO the bike would not start. OPERATOR ERROR.
The bike sounds bloody awful. Even worse than before. It barely idles and it sounds like metal parts are being smashed together. Remember - all I want to do is fix a little oil leak....
I do not want to take the cam cover off again - I'm now paranoid about how many times the cam cover bolts can be retorqued without stripping. I think this descent into paranoia is what drove me crazy the previous evening trying to find an electrical problem that did not exist. Any little thing, and I think the whole bike needs repairing. Also, my wife and child hide from me whenever I enter the house. They do not recognise the bitter, twisted, black hearted man I have become. Debbie sez - why don't you just drive your car? I refrain from cutting her into small pieces and eating her. She doesn't know it is me vs. the machine! I will not be beaten.
So I check the valve adjustment - it is right on. So why is it so noisy. Then a voice in my head (no, not the usual one) says - its the valve timing...
Off comes the tank, seat, side covers, coil, cam cover. I check the marks I made on the timing chain and cam sprocket. They are off by two teeth - how can I not have noticed when I put it together? Then I think about it, and realise the error of my ways. Now we put everything back together, using the alignment marks on the cam sprocket (not the marks I added) and the TDC mark. Once again we had to deal with the annoying cam chain tension release procedure, bolt torque paranoia, no access for valve adjusting feeler gauges, and cleaning all the parts. BUT.. we are getting faster at doing things. After all, we have now had everything apart three times (+ dismantling for electrical trouble shooting), and all I wanted to do was fix the oil leak.
So - two weeks have passed, with me spending every free moment working on the bike or worrying about working on the bike, swearing and retrieving tools from my neighbours garden. My family has come back from hiding in the basement. The motor doesn't leak oil. I am still a little worried about the worn cam lobe - but that will have to wait for a spring rebuild, when I can do this all over again. To cap it all off - on Monday I go to ride to work and its pissing down - the weather was beautiful whilst the bike was in my garage...
Many thanks go to Woody Delp who put up with my ranting and provided the second set of hands required for many of the above procedures, and to the people on the THUMPER list who sent me helpful hints, and no thanks at all to the Honda motor company for building bikes that are easy to put together on an assembly line, but a total bastard to fix in your garage.

P.S. I almost dropped the fucking thing this morning (its raining again) on a slippery corner.. wouldn't that just be the best postscript?

So whats new with you ? -Iain.