Engine Lunched

[Neeja]

Managed to get a connection (at 135kbps, thanks, BT) to post this.

On the way back from Hovis's funeral my bike backfired. It's done this on occasion over the last two years, so not really bothered about it. Sat cruising at a constant speed for the next 30 mins or so, no problems. Following this I opened the throttle to overtake and there was no power, and a rather large rattling sound.

I was just down the road from a Shell garage, so I pulled in to take a look over. A brief exam of the bike found that it was low on oil. This was odd, as I'd checked it before setting off from the crematorium because I'd developed a light ticking. Badger said cam-chain tensioner, oil level was good, I shrugged and carried on riding it (without problems for 150 miles).

Worried that this may not be a great thing, I nipped in and grabbed some oil. Poured in a bit, checked level. Still nothing. Poured in more. And more. And more. One litre of oil later and it was up to just below the "low" level in the oil window.

Started the bike now that the oil level was back to normal and it sounded like a bag of spanners. Called recovery, waited several hours. During this time I looked over the bike. The rear exhaust header clamp had some exhaust packing poking out of it. There was also white crap around the clamp. Hurrah, maybe it's just the header coming off.

Dropped the oil, small metal lumps in it. Engine lunched. Unhappy. See thread requesting new engine (thanks, LP): http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=141334

I'm now going to go cry into the nearest glass of spirits.

[the_lone_wolf]

Mine ran out of electricity...

Sounds like yours ran out of main bearings...

Sorry to hear it, at least it didn't seize and spit you off:eek:

[Binky]

Bad luck Neeja. Was jut about to PM you to see if you got back ok.

My bike was playing up today also, backfiring, not responding to the throttle properly, the works.

Good luck finding a new engine mate, sorry i can't be of help ATM. :thumleft:

[vardypeeps]

Was is someone who posted a while back that a faulty petrol tap let fuel down into the oil through the pistons and helped damage their engine?
Might be worth checking it works when you pop a new engine in.

I'm sure I read that on here

[yorkie_chris]

Yes that can happen if the petrol tap and carbs foul up at the same time!

Bit of a bugger about that, though it's not all bad, the clutch pack, gearbox and various other parts are worth a few quid.

And, you can now do the original cam-swap mod.

[davepreston]

its ur lucky day mate (concidering) come and put some cash in my pocket

[_Stretchie_]

Calling Squirrel Hunter.. Does this sound familiar?

[Neeja]

And, you can now do the original cam-swap mod.

Was actually thinking about this while picking up the new engine. What's the gains from just changing out exhaust for intake? I'm not going to do it until the engine's been running for a few weeks just to make sure.

I also want to tear the old engine apart to see the insides. I'm assuming the gremlins all have their own little cages and that the petrol leaks down into tubes that they feed from to make them run faster which makes the bike go. Maybe they're not all dead?

Edit: And for reference, when taking the old engine out, the rear exhaust header was hanging off the stump. No need to slacken the clamp off at all, once the two bolts holding the pipes to the engine were removed you could pull it all the way down with virtually no effort.

[Neeja]

Have now found this thread, which I think was the one referenced above:

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=139423&highlight=faulty+petrol

Although the symptoms sound scarily familiar to what I experienced, my petrol tap is fine. My tank's currently sitting right way up on my garage floor with about 10 litres of fuel in it, and isn't allowing any to flow out at all.

Is it possible the tap's stil knackered? The carbs were mostly stripped down a few months ago when I put in new pilot jets, so they should be ok, but is there anything I should look at while they're off the bike?

[yorkie_chris]

You will probably find loads of grey metal dust as slime in bottom of engine and when you take rods off, bearing shells will be like round razorblades.


I don't think it was fuel issue, otherwise your oil level would have been really high and stank of petrol.

[Neeja]

I don't think it was fuel issue, otherwise your oil level would have been really high and stank of petrol.

True, dat. Good point.

Any comment on the single cam-swap gains? ;)

[yorkie_chris]

Dunno, not sure of the lift compared to the pointy cams.

[Neeja]

Single cam swap would be replacing exhaust with intake so it's just intake-intake, right? If so, isn't the lift going to be the difference on the intake side between pointy and curvey intake? Or is it not that common to just swap intake into exhaust side at the same time?

[yorkie_chris]

Northwind knows more about this one than me, I just bought some race cams!