Bad Bottom End - No curry involved

bmac109 · Post by **bmac109** » Sun May 10, 2015 3:24 pm

Mine is a cautionary tail regarding the rare but fecking annoying half shell tang failure (assumption).

There I was plodding along when suddenly the engine gave that all telling horrendous ball bearings pinging in a metal handbag death rattle. (if you have ever been unfortunate to have a bottom end go on you, you kinda always remember the noise (VFR750 & ZX10 ) BUT I was hoping against hope I was wrong.
I managed to make it home, park the bike on the center stand allowed it to cool, once cool I inspected the oil level sight window and it showed the oil was just just above the bottom of the window it had been sat at the halfway point the previous day, well I drained the oil which confirmed my worse fears "Boldrick" had been trying to make fine flakes of silvery gold using my crank half shells..fecker!!

Long story short Only got 1.2 liters of oil from the engine and there had been no oil warning light!! I am rather perplex about this as the bike has been meticulously looked after 36K. I have not split the engine yet! and I am making the assumption that its the Crank half shells as both heads I have inspected and they seem sweet as.

Any recommendations on where the best place is to purchase a second hand engine? Motor Works? or is it worth the hassel of a strip down and rebuild I am open to advise, as the wife also has an R1100s and I would not hear the end of it if we never had any more so called "magic moments".

[img][img]http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy26/bmac109/Yikes.jpg[/img][/img][img][img]http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy26/bmac109/Yikes%20Gold.jpg[/img][/img]

boxerscott · Post by **boxerscott** » Sun May 10, 2015 7:16 pm

Bad luck, keep us posted on events.

gus · Post by **gus** » Mon May 11, 2015 1:05 pm

Hi
If the heads, cams , barrels and pistons /rings are good then think about replacing the shells if the crank is good. It's pretty easy to do if the crank is in good nick. No need to split the cases . Strip right down first and inspect and then go from there. Motorworks or sherlocks for a short engine if the crank is fubar!!!
Bad luck on the low oil. I assume you didn't notice it burning any oil up to the failure.?
Good luck
Gus

dave the german · Post by **dave the german** » Mon May 11, 2015 1:47 pm

Hi Gus, how's the race bike coming along? Hope there's positive progress

gus · Post by **gus** » Tue May 12, 2015 11:28 am

dave the german wrote:Hi Gus, how's the race bike coming along? Hope there's positive progress

Hi
Still sat on the ramp with its guts spread everywhere. I am replacing the engine with a proper race spec engine, different rear diff and sorting the suspension out properly. This takes time and money , so no racing for me this year. I want to start again next year with a proper sorted race bike.
All the best
Gus

dave the german · Post by **dave the german** » Tue May 12, 2015 2:07 pm

gus wrote:
dave the german wrote:Hi Gus, how's the race bike coming along? Hope there's positive progress
Hi
Still sat on the ramp with its guts spread everywhere. I am replacing the engine with a proper race spec engine, different rear diff and sorting the suspension out properly. This takes time and money , so no racing for me this year. I want to start again next year with a proper sorted race bike.
All the best
Gus

At least you have a plan - fingers crossed for you