TOOL OF THE MONTH
Ralph gets bore-ing!
Atool that few people I know own is a borescope. The medical boys have used them for years and yes, I’ve suffered ‘that’ indignity before you ask!
I have been aware of borescopes in the automotive industry for over 30 years, but the early ones were from the Snap-on man with a price tag more akin to a Rolex… The resolution was poor and the image only in black and white with quite a large probe so I wasn’t really tempted.
My first borescope was a Snap-on unit with a colour screen, but still relatively poor resolution. I picked it up second-hand from e-bay for big wedge. It served me well and helped me diagnose a number of problems. Again, it was a bit limited due to the large probe.
Some years later I was invited to Laser Tools to see their full range of new tools. They showed me what at the time was their very latest borescope and I was absolutely blown away by it. The probe was a mere 3.9mm in diameter and very flexible. The screen was so much better than my own kit and the camera was far higher resolution.
The new Laser model was so much better than the old Snap-on one and is regularly used for inspecting piston crowns from the plug hole; inspecting inlet valves and faces through the carburettors and inlet tract; inspecting exhaust valves; and the insides of petrol tanks. The list of uses is pretty much limitless, but the one that sticks out the most was at the end of last year where it truly saved my bacon.
I was laying hands on a recalcitrant 1978 Z1000A1 at a low ebb one evening. I was refitting the top cam-chain idler spanning the cam-chain tunnel. They have rubber dampers that should have steel plates bonded to them, but the bond had long since failed on this one and a new replacement was too costly for the Yorkshireman who owned the bike.
As I was locating the bolts on the left-hand side, I heard a noise that would freeze the blood of any bike fettler: the sound of the right-hand plate falling down the cam-chain tunnel. Believe me, the air was blue, particularly as the sump was full of lovely new 10w40 oil. The best hope was that it had fallen outside the chain and into the sump. The oil was drained and the sump removed, but no plate was to be found. I broke out the borescope and spent some time guiding the probe into all the dark recesses of the engine, hoping to spy the errant part. The worst place possible for the plate to have ended up was inside the centre crankshaft bearing cap. If it were there then the engine would have to come out of the bike and into the engine frame where I would need to split the crankcases to undo the bearing cap.
I managed to guide the probe into the bearing cap and there it was. In a last ditch attempt I withdrew the probe and fitted it with its tiny magnet attachment. I wasn’t particularly hopeful, given how tight it was getting the probe there in the first place, bumping it past all manner of obstructions. Using the screen, I guided the probe like a surgeon back into the bearing cap and was very relieved to see the magnet grab the errant part and hugely gratified that it stayed attached as I gently pulled it back up through the cam-chain tunnel.
The joy of seeing the probe reappear with my naked eyes with the plate attached was a feeling I won’t forget in a while. I took a couple of pics with my phone to share with my friends, which I have included here. That one job more than paid for the tool. Since then Laser Tools have made an even better one with a bigger 5-inch screen, which is quite a bit more costly, but the above story was still fresh and I had to have it! Both models can take photographs and video of what the camera sees, which are saved on to a Micro SD card. Both can connect to a PC via USB. The smaller one uses four AA batteries, whereas its bigger brother uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
You never think you need a borescope until you, well, really DO need one!