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Spotted something on my Rockster today which made me wonder if I was dreaming. You know, one of those moments where you almost pinch yourself to see if you are still asleep.

While having a glance at the oil level window I noticed what appears to be a perfect bubble of paint about an inch wide has formed on the LHS Cylinder head towards rear bottom just before the bolt , It is kind of egg shaped and must be proud of the surface by about a quarter inch. You can push it with your finger and it just sort of bounces back into shape. Kind of like a skin blister ready to pop. Pity I don't have a digital camera on me to take a photo!

Apart from the fact that its definitely going to cool and crack and look unsightly at some point and need recoating I'm wondering whether I should be overly concerned. Does it indicate some sort of bad hot spot in the cylinder head or valves underneath I wonder? I've only had the bike a couple of months and got it at 16.5K. Valves should have been checked at 12k, stamp is in the book but who knows? It must be the intake valves at the rear, not the exhaust valves but hey. It feels likely I'm going to be taking off the covers to look inside at some point. God knows what I'll find?

Other thing is, it's pretty much at the point where a cylinder head would touch down if the bike went over on that side. Could it be some sort of bodge repair that is now starting to fail, if so paint match was bloody good ? These are the thoughts running through my head now.

Bizarre I know and I can't find mention of this mode of failure on the net. Has anyone else had this happen to them or shed any light on my blister......

Cheers

Jon i n Maidenhead

I’m not sure if it plagued the single spark bikes, but I know for a fact that the blistering paint is very common on the dual spark models with the blue paint. The problem was in the paint/preparation.

Keep an eye on your forks too, many folks have had the paint start to flake on those as well. I was fortunate enough ( ) to have the dealer tip my bike over during warranty work resulting in them replacing my bubbling valve cover.

Anyhow, you can strip the paint and rattle can the cover or have them coated.

God, I've already done the forks. Black Hammerite job, looks like the cylinder covers will be next. They are a fiddly shape so I feel a winter project to find a sand blasting/powder coating specialist close to me is coming on.

Afraid that blue Rockster accent paint is another character flaw. My Edition 80 Rockster hasn't flaked yet on fork tubes or cylinder heads, but I fully expect it to happen during ownership. Not sure if I'll try to match the original flat gray/blue, or maybe shoot for the metallic blue that's used for the subframe and Telelever A-arm.

Just checked: valve cover flat paint is only application on my Rockster, with other accents the metallic (or wrinkle) blue. The latter paint is in good condition in all locations. If paint is good, then something else must be awry.

Noticed the blistering paint on my fork tubes last summer, now I have the same thing, the bubbles on the cylinder head,at least 7 on the right side, and 3 on the left, and 1 on each side has popped. Oh well, will look into some sort of bead blast/powdercoat eventually. It sucks, of course, but love my bike so will just deal with it I guess. After having a daughter in college, out of state, how much can it really cost to fix it? My perspective on life has been forced to change in these last few years.

Yup, my last Rockster had this in a slightly different spot on the valve cover. I pricked it with a pin a few times while it was hot and that seemed to settle it down.

I've had those some time back. Now the paint has cracked and I have flakes falling off from time to time. What surprised me though is the fact that under the paint itself, the cylinder has more or less the same blue color which doesn't make it so bad. In fact I would prefer both my cylinders like that. I thought about sanding both of them but I am not sure the "built in" color would last... Here are a couple of pics...

I had two developing on the LHS valve cover as well, until the bike got knocked over and the valve cover got replaced under insurance. I actually asked my dealer when they were doing an estimate on the damage and he swore up and down that it wasn't normal. I've also got a little paint flaking on the front forks as well. I'm hoping the paint holds up for the next few years at least.

My 04 rockster also developed small blisters on the left side, 2 actually. I didn't notice any lack of performance. Do you guys believe it is just a bad paint application or is it possible that anything mechanical is lurking inside there. Thanks.