Although I was tired from the previous week's riding, I was itching to break something, so we immediately jumped into the valve adjustment of Todd's 90's era Magna. Being a shim-under-bucket design, I knew it'd be more complicated than a simple screw-adjuster type, but I'd forgotten that this engine also has chain-driven camshafts. Yuck. This combination has to be the worst case scenario for a valve adjustment.

The disassembly went without a hitch, but when it's time to remove the cams, the cam chain tensioner must come out. About this time, the entire Chicago Sabmag contingent arrived at Todd's house. The resulting cacophony of conflicting Chicagoan accents and discussions (you don't think 6 guys standing in the same room are gonna talk about the same thing, do ya?) removed any ability on my part to concentrate on what I was doing. And that would be Bad, considering I'm about to remove the part of the engine that provides precise control of its timing. Todd gave me a querulous look and I indicated that I was gonna take the manual and sneak off to the kitchen, to study it in peace. He acknowledged that this was probably a good idea.

Of course, once I got there and sat down, they followed me. Ron Rosensweet plopped a map down on top of my manual and some of them (the ones that weren't discussing the gross national product of Egypt) started pointing and talking about the proposed map route. Todd looked at me again and I shrugged and pushed the manual to the side. We were done for a while. Pam served lunch and I listened to the Chicagoans badger each other. Ron and Greg Terpin appear to be the "badgees", while Dale, Chuck and, well, everyone else seem to be the "badgers". But it changes often. Buy a program if you want to know the players next time.

Now, to me, who'd just spent the last week alone and amongst god's finer (and quieter) creations, being surrounded by a gaggle of Chicagoans was similar to what a robin must feel like landing among a flock of geese. Once the food was exhausted, however, most of them left, and Todd and I went back to work on the valves. Chuck stuck around to provide harassment, however.

The manuals says, "First remove mufflers". Um...what? Looking at the situation, we could see that the cam chain tensioner can't easily be gotten to with the mufflers in place. We removed the left muffler. Now we could see that the cam chain tensioner can't easily be gotten to at all. Having prehensile arms would help here, but Todd managed to get it out eventually, using about 6-ft of socket extensions strung together, 5 swivels, and a wobble socket. And that was the easy part.

We measured the appropriate shims and then came the time to get the cams back in. The physics of the situation eluded us for a while, but eventually we figured it out. When it came time to get the cam chain tensioner back in, however, the problems began.

First off, although I've always seen mechanics use a straight screwdriver for this part, Honda says you need a special tool to keep the tensioner from popping out while you're inserting it and bolting it down. Due to the constrained (read: nonexistant) spaces on the rear cylinder head, this special tool snaps into place and frees your one hand (and you ain't getting more than one in there, lemme tell you) to do other things, like actually bolt the thing down. Fortuitously, the manual offers a template for the aforementioned special tool, which I Dremelled out of aluminum.

About this time, Nate Saltus arrived, providing a very good demonstration of his Aerostich jacket's waterproof capabilities, largely because everything else he was wearing was soaked. His choice to forego rain pants over his fleece-lined cargo pants allowed them to add 80lbs to his gross vehicle weight, I'm sure. I particularly liked the hightop tennis shoes. When Nate walked, we could hear him: "Squish squish squish squish."

He shook my hand with a hypothermic grip, and we turned him over to the capable hands of Pam while we went back to the valve adjustment. Our special tool didn't work very well...it seemed to be too thick. The stock requested was 1mm, and I thought we came pretty close, but apparently not. It wouldn't insert far enough to stay in. We tried repeatedly, and eventually resorted to a hammer to tap it further into the tensioner. It stuck by main force, then. We got the tensioner into place and pulled the tool out. Nothing. It refused to pop out. First it won't stay in, now it won't come out. Bastard. This sequence was repeated several times, but eventually Todd just screwed the thing out manually. I rechecked the timing marks and everything looked good, so Todd suggested we leave the other head for another time. Lessee....keep wrenching or go eat. Okie dokey!

The rest of the night was spent watching Nate return to a normal color.