valve clearances or bent/damaged rocker shaft may be causing it to be more ticky.....

Probably the valve clearances need to be set.

Out of interest how did you stop the sward falling into the bottom of the head?

yeh i did check the valve clearances, the inlet valve on no1 which pop'd the rocker spring off was the most out so i tighened it a bit, the others seemed to be alright(ish:o ) but i'm not used to using a feeler gauge for anything other than sparkies so i don't know how accurate im being:confused:
i'm probably gonna do this tonight, just gotta find a 8.3mm drill bit......

snapped
 

ok finally got around to doing this today..........the helicoiling, etc went alright and its all tightened back up & running.
but at the moment thats the least of my worries:( cos whilst cleaning some of the excess oil out of the head before starting work i noticed the head bolt second in from the cam belt on the exhaust side was loose and after having a fiddle i realised it has snapped so i pulled it out and had a look and to me it looks like its been snapped a long time:confused: so now i don't know what to do, im going drifting a week today which doesent help matters.....but as i said it isent a fresh snap on the bolt so it must have been holding up for a while so hopefully it will be ok for a bit, im gonna pull my spare lump out and start getting that ready but im in two minds as to weather i should do it now or wait for the inevitable:furious
my rev limiter came thru today tho so i'll be getting that in and set nice and low......

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f8...t/IMG_1406.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f8...t/IMG_1411.jpg

:mad:

I found this on my vert first S12. You will be able to remove the remaining bit of the bolt, as chances are it exposed, but obviously you need to have the head off.

Judging by how clean the head is, it pretty possible the head has been rebuilt, but someone got carried away tightening them up.