It finally happened.

[OldWrench]

Goldwings are suppose to last forever, RIGHT. Started out on a ride with a friend and about fifteen miles from home I see the temp gage climbing and white smoke pouring out of the right bank, yep, blew a head gasket.

Ok, I pulled the head but what I found troubled me, #3 looks like it had been experiencing detonation, #1 also showed minor signs, but not as bad as #3. Well I went ahead and pulled the left head and all seems fine. After scratching my old head while waiting for the heads to come back from the machine shop I wondered why I would have detonation on the right bank, and not the left. Timing belts are the only thing I could think of, could the right side been off one notch, or possibly jumped a notch. I did bring #1 to TDC on the compression stroke before pulling her down but I didn't pay close attention to the timing marks, was no reason to. Machine shop said neither head was warped, I did the valves, guides, and seals even though they actually seemed in pretty good shape.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, or have any other ideas?

 

[zman]

Maybe the gas you use, medium or high grade is best, I dont think the octane ratings of today's fuel is equal to 80` era fuels. Detonation will definitely blow a head gasket, wonder if blowing between the cylinders will cause detonation?
Wish I could help further.

 

[OldWrench]

I know the gas we get today isn't the best, but if it were the gas I should have had the same effect on both sides. I suppose the gasket could have been leaking slightly but not enough to notice but it just didn't look like antifreeze contamination in the cylinders. Oh well, will scratch my head some more.

 

[slabghost]

Could just be the one or two spark plugs having a hot spot after running a bit. They are mass produced and rarely ever the same. Or possibly cam slot and gear slot are off slightly in the same direction putting that cam almost 1 tooth out of time.

 

[joedrum]

ive seen where one side works different from other side a lot in oldwings ...ive wonder the same thing ...why is this .....i doutb it the belts ... gas dose seem it would effect all four ...but oldwings have 4 carbs ..to be even worse there 4 vacume controled carbs ...you said #3 was worse than 1 ...there is also intake horns though.... i like the set up and was made robust that was 40 yrs ago and old and could be leaking a bit and making carb acr up ....it just dont take much for a stock carb act nothing like the others ....im rather sure your looking at why most oldwings are all over the scale in running rich and lean in different rpms and so on ...there just to many things to trip them up and no way to adjust them ...as they were made users unfriendly ...and a joke in carburation engineering thanks to epa ....

im always amazed when i break into oldwing motors you never hardly ever see the cylinders the same ....since ive been in the carburation mods on oldwings ive learn that the cv carbs are the biggest foul running ingrediant in the oldwing mix ....you can just clearly see the running inefficeintcy of the stock oldwing motor set up by looking at the cylinders as this thread is about opcorn:

 

[Joep]

As far as one tooth off.. iirc when I redid my belts on my 11 if it was off by the one tooth it locked up when turned over by hand... so don't think that was it unless you got valve relief cut outs in your pistons..

 

[OldWrench]

The more I think about it, most likely was mixture differences within the carbs.