He shattered around one bolt hole of the cam cap. I'd do whatever I could to repair.

I suspect the cap bores are machined at same time as head and that's why they're not sold separately.


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I agree that you cannot replace the cap, just leave the valve cover bolt out, silicone the hole.

I don't remember any valve cover bolt attaching to the cam cap, that would be weird.

edit: Ok I looked at the pictures I had of my tear down, I would just still just leave that bolt out and give it a go.

 

Yep, caps and head are line bored as a unit. However, believe it or not, I've seen or at least heard of guys using a cap from another engine on a KLR or two over the years, and they got it to work. I remember some guy finding a KLR junkyard and going through some cam caps and plastiguaging the donors until he found something close. I think I'd search for a used engine before doing that.

 

It may be possible for someone to take your head with the cap in place and rebuild that small area through machining and rebuilding by heliarcing and rethreading. I am supposing this as I have never seen the cover hole on the cam caps and don't know for sure the danger of the heating to other close components. I cracked a cam cap on my z1 when I was a kid while putting the cams back in. Pit Stop in Central Fl (I'll call it welding) welded the crack almost fully across the top diagonally (Franken cap scar) on the 4 bolt the cap all same reasons caps and head bored as a unit. I was freaked especially when came time to unbolt and rebolt again but it never missed a lick. The z1 had babbit bearings in the head and caps with a low psi high volume oil system. I imagine these bikes are non babbit.

Hang in there

Steve

 

I took the camshaft cap to a local aluminum welder here in Rockville, Maryland and he place a welded of material on the cap. Then to a friend who is a retired mechanic and we measured and drilled threading into the new weld material. Placed helicoils into a three threads on the camshaft. I bolted it all together and will test for a leak when I get a new gasket and head bolt washers.
I have lots of cell phone picture and will atempt to load then into this site, as a picture is worth........(you know)

 

WOW! That cam cap is a plain bearing and it's clearance and shape are pretty critical to having the correct oil pressure and volume the cam bearing surface MUST HAVE!