1995 XL Mystery Metal

Stratwhak shared this story of mystery metal in his 1995 XL883 conversion:

I was heading home from work and the engine dies on me at 45mph. I pop the clutch and it fires right up. Came to a stop and the engine sounds great. I go another 5 miles down the road running 60, engine starts rattling like crazy and dies again. I trailer the bike home and start trouble shooting. Took the plugs out and tried to roll the bike in gear, wouldn’t budge. Took the primary cover off and eyed the tranny over, it’s fine. Took the timing cover off, gears are in great shape. Put the bike in neutral and I was able to turn the engine backwards with the crankshaft nut but it would stop when the rear piston was at TDC. Finally a clue! Pulled the rear head and found a small piece of metal sitting on top of the cylinder.

Damage

Damage

More damage

Yes, the piece is magnetic

With the help of some good friends and the great guys at xlforum.net we went through the list of the usual suspects to source the metal, but all was OK.

This ring is complete

No scews missing from inside the carb

Another shot of the carb

Valve guide looks good

No, the ground electrode did not break off the spark plug

Then they finally got through to me that shrapnal can and will cross over through the intake manifold. Dude! Pull the front head already! Doh!

The culprit

Ouch

Looks expensive

Now for the $64,000 question: what happened and why?

Low Oil Pressure?

DC in PHX writes about his 1999 XL Custom:

The story was that a wrist pin retaining clip was not installed properly (by my indie shop) the clip worked it’s way out, got ground up between the piston and cylinder wall, and found its way into the oil pump. If I was relying on an idiot light instead of a gauge I would probably not have detected the problem before disaster struck.

2004 Softail Engine Noise

Adam writes:

Customer complaint of engine noise on 04 Softail. Jim pulled and check lifter and cams to check out. After further inspection found exhaust valve got a “little” hot. Also check ET sensor and how melted it was. Sorry about pic quality on some. These cheap cameras suck! That guy must have left the bike on idle for a week!!! Obsessive compulsive idler!

I’m pretty sure that exhaust seat is not supposed to be moved away from the head like that. Oops.

2002 Buell M2 Rear Tire

Adam writes:

Kid bought it and while riding on highway tire decided to let go. Bike went down but not bad. Kid’s all right. That’s all I have now. It was a OE Dunlop D205. Not the best tire Dunlop ever made………

Sorry for the blurry pics. Blame Adam actually!

Bent Rod

lagerdrinker writes:

how i found it: car came into the shop with a miss at idle and a slight tap. originally believed damaged cam, lash cap, or spring. was a light tap. disassembled top engine and inspected, no damage found…wtf??? so unlikely as it seemed i pulled pan down and looked up into crank and rods. rod was rubbing crank and cylinder. i believe at one point engine had hydrolocked but the customer swears nothing had ever happened. “just started missing” he says. car way out of warranty, customer did not want a new engine. replaced rod and piston with used ones. expressed no warranty or gaurantee of work. this car is still going after about 6 months and customer is happy.

this kinda shit only happens to others. if it were my engine and i just threw in used parts my engine would just spit them right back out at me.

Throwin’ a Leg out of Bed

Stevo from OZ writes:

Here’s a GSXR 1000 that threw a leg outta bed at about 140kmh while doin a highchair wheelie… very lucky boy … that’s why he’s decided to go back to straightliners and make more HP instead of doin the stunt stuff.

V-Max Spit a Rod Out

Jack from Australia writes:

Not much of a story behind it. I was attempting a 3rd gear rolling burnout at the time (max revs) and it went BANG … end of story. It punched a 3 inch hole in the right front cases and spat the rod, piston, etc. out onto the road.

Cheers, Jack

2003 XB9R Saga

These pictures are from a 2003 Buell® XB9R which was converted into a race bike for CCS/ASRA. In 2004, we installed a Nallin 1169cc conversion kit with oversized valves & a port job. The compression ratio is 13.1:1 and was running with a Zipper’s 585 cam. We had an oiling problem the first season which damaged the cams, pistons, valves and guides. At that point, Nallin was unable to provide us the same pistons, and when re-working the heads installed the wrong size valves and seats. Our machinist had to make pistons to work with the heads. No problem.

After getting it running again for the 2006 racing season, a valve seat fell out of the head after a few dyno pulls while we were tuning the fuel injection. Loss of compression soon followed. This damaged both cylinders, heads & pistons.

Starting from scratch once again, we got a set of stock heads with stock valves, and with minor porting got higher flow numbers and a better curve that the Nallin heads with oversized valves (edit: different flow bench and operator.) We are currently waiting for the cylinders to be repaired or replaced. Hopefully we’ll be running in May 2006 for Autobahn.

Why 6 Inches is Not Enough

ice42 says:

“of ice that is…..

This unfortunate mess happened from a couple weeks ago up near WAUSAU WI. All that was left of the 2006 DODGE pick-up (on loan from a local dealership) was the hubcap. You can see the sleeve of the driver climbing out…he got out OK as did the passenger.

Always remember:
check your ice before you ride and don’t follow too close to the plow truck!”

Cracked Rotax Cases

ice42 sez:

“While this crack doesn’t appear to be as devastating or destructive as other submissions to deathrev.com, and its occurrence didn’t cause a hair raising pile-up, it was none-the-less painful when discovered. This 1985 600cc motor, now considered “vintage”, has been through alot of racing, and still remains competitive on the lakes in ice racing. I recently replaced the cases (admittedly with “good used” ones) and updated the headwork to the 61.5 hp package at a cost of more than i would like to share. So when I pulled the clutch cover off to replace what I thought was a leaking gasket I was shocked to discover the crack - I actually went numb for a second. Our ice season is short and unpredictable, and we are in the middle of it right now (January 2006.) Luckliy, the weather this year has been brutal (i.e. too warm) for racing and most of the bigger races have been cancelled due to sketchy ice conditions. However, the Nationals (our pinnacle) have been rescheduled for the last week in February and there is a slim chance i will be able to raise the necessary $1500 from “side cash” (money unknown to the wife) to get this motor back on the track. If anyone has a set of ROTAX cases I am in the market…..ice42″

[Pictures coming soon]