| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
OK, what does this mean?         Cylinder walls look pristine. Piston looks very gooey also. No perceptible up and down play in crank or rod. | ||
| Buell_bert |
Valve guide seals?? Looks like oil getting into the combustion area. This is just a quick idea. | ||
| Airdale |
Could be worn valve oil seals, or crankcase fumes being burnt, if there is no breather reroute on this motor. And its on the intake side of the combustion process. Exhaust side looks normal. Good luck on the rebuild Airdale | ||
| Reepicheep |
Worn valve oil seals seems too good to be true, but I'll take it if that's it. I also don't have the breather reroute... did that on my M2 and got tired of the mess it left everywhere. But looking at this stuff may make me decide to do it on the Uly now. And I have been known to overfill just a little when I check or change the oil. So new oil seals, clean everything up, make sure the valves are straight and the length is in spec, re-lap the valves into the head, make sure the piston and bore are clean and in spec. I should probably replace the lifters as well, given I have the head off and the bike has 30k miles. I haven't decided if I want to take the rear head back off. I probably won't. It was replaced with a cleaned up head with new valve oil seals 10k miles ago (it had 10k miles on it before I refreshed it). I didn't replace the lifters on that one, but now I kind of wish I had. Do lifters really wear? Or do people just blame them for everything else that is tappy about these engines and replace them without reason? Seems like these same lifters go 100k+ miles in Chevy engines with no problems... On this front head I think I'll replace them just because I am chasing a phantom tapping, and I don't want to have to take it back down again. So absent any compelling evidence of another problem, I should replace anything affordable that *could* be the problem but that can't be easily measured to make sure it is in spec. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Oh, and one more datapoint... in Ohio, there is a lot of stealth E90 gas, even when you buy the premium. And this bike had to run a tank of E85 at 6am in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan one dark morning in the rain... it was that or push (poor planning on my part). This tapping started that same trip on the way home... it was a hard riding 800+ mile day, lots of 80 MPH interstate for hours and hours at a time. And there was significant oil consumption just that day. | ||
| Blake |
Bill, The overfilling is your likely culprit. I've learned to fill at most to halfway between the low and full marks and I don't add any unless the level drops below the low mark. As to the tapping noise. Remember that aluminum heads, cylinders, and cases expand with increasing temperature at twice the rate of steel pushrods and lifters. Also, oil becomes less viscous as temperature rises. Combine the two and when the engine gets hotter, the tapping gets a LOT louder. My paradigm for the Buell air-cooled engines is that as long as they are running ok, I don't try to fix them. If something does seem amiss with engine performance, it's a good idea to run compression and leakdown tests before tearing into the engine. They can be very informative, especially the leakdown where you can sometimes discern the location of the leak(s); noise in intake tract indicates intake valve sealing issues; noise in exhaust tract indicates exhaust valve sealing issues; noise in crankcase indicates poor ring seal. If those tests show good, look elsewhere, EFI, the various sensors, check the spark plugs, bad fuel... Full disclosure: On the Cyclone, I have checked the oil pump drive gear. For me, the risk of causing more trouble than I solve is a major factor for my chosen Buell engine maintenance paradigm. You are probably a better mechanic than I. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I debated for a long time before I tore into it. For me the clincher was that I was worrying about it too much when I was riding the bike, even though I knew I should just ride anyway. It was interfering with my ability to enjoy the bike, and making me unwilling to take longer group rides on it because I didn't want to ruin somebody elses ride with something I sort of knew about. I was doing OK ignoring it until my brother in law bought an 07 XB12S, and I did a bunch of mechanical clean up work on it. It purred like mine used too, hot or cold, with none of the tapping mine had. Then my tapping got a little worse, and with visions of the "2007 bad crank" table neighborhood where my bike lives, I decided to tear into it again. And this bike hit the side of a corolla doing a full stoppie at probably 3000 RPM and 20 MPH, hard enough to shear the rear head heim joint boss. That can't be a good thing. And I have a blackstone report with the comment about "thats 2x the silver as normal in your oil" (which I think is from an over stressed 07 crank bearing). So it was ultimately a "when in doubt gas it" thing. It was more about removing the suspense than a requirement I solve the problem. It was just bugging me. I've now held each cam in my hand, made sure no valves or pushrods were bent, and I'll likely replace the lifters. I'll have to figure out how to check the crank as well... there is no vertical play on the rod that I can feel, nada - zero - nothing. Not even a hint of a clunk. | ||
| Blake |
Might as well go all the way! If something makes me nervous about the engine, I downshift and wack it WOT into the rev limiter. Proof test. Broke a belt once doing that. Another time the rear header pipe broke at the collector and rotated up towards me, coming to rest against my leg. Then there was the time the race muffler broke off and sliced the rear tire as they met somewhere north of 80 MPH. The Nallinized Cyclone has its ways. It frightens me after riding around on the civilized Uly. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Finally resorted to a polishing wheel (polish impregnated soft dremel wheel) to get the carbon out. It simply wasn't coming out any other way in the places where it was heavily deposited. Did the same thing on the surface of the piston. Kept it off any mating surface though, for that it was green scrubbie pads, solvents, brass brushes, and a TON of elbow grease. Any tips from anyone about cleaning up the rings and ring groves? I'd prefer not to remove the piston if I can help it, as that is one less thing to go wrong going back together. But I can remove them if that's the right thing to do. For that matter, maybe I should just replace the rings while I am in there. | ||
| Buell_bert |
Personally I would not worry to much about nor replace the rings. They have been broke in and should not be damaged. Of course there are no pics of them here. The cylinder walls should be clean and there most likely is just discoloration on the top ring. | ||
| Reepicheep |
The cylinder walls are scary clean. You can still see the crosshatching on a motor with 30k miles on it. Makes me wonder why the head and piston aren't plated with the same stuff. | ||
| Buell_bert |
Sounds to me that it just got dirty but not damaged. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Havent found any damage yet, but i haven't put the valves on a micrometer yet. I have torn into it far enough to get the lifters off. And I think I've decided to pull the rear head off as well and check them all out as well just for peace of mind. So this will end up a complete top end "rebuild", which really means clean and check and replace valve seals. And $100 worth of gaskets. I wonder if any of the crank problems are related to excessive carbon deposits. | ||
| Sagehawk |
Reepicheep: in all of the carbon deposits that were there, did you see any gold looking spots on the piston or head that seemed to correlate with the same color spot in a mating place on the other piece? I pulled flhr upper end off at app. 47,000 miles and it was carboned up like that. After careful inspection, it seemed that those spots were like polished carbon. In other words instead of the piston hitting the head, it was the buildup of carbon hitting the buildup of carbon. sounds silly, but for the year before, I had all kinds of pinging problems, idling problems and mysterious erratic running problems here today, gone tomorrow depending on fuel, weather, or how hard I run the bike. The hitting of hard carbon will make a noise that is hard to track down. Check to see what your deck height is after all is cleaned up. How much clearance does a stock buell have tween the piston and head? | ||
| Sagehawk |
also, how thick is your head gaskets? screw your spark plug in and torque it. flip head, see if any or how many threads are exposed in the combustion chamber. May need to seat plug higher to keep any exposed threads from being in combustion chamber. Index plug at this time too would be good. exposed threads in combustion chamber carbon up and thats why I pulled threads out of rear head in flhr. carbon doesnt always come off plug when you are removing it. I run two gaskets on each plug on flhr. sorry about randomness but inquiring minds wish to know. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I have the stock gaskets (as far as I know, bought the bike used with 10k). the carbon had definitely bridged from piston to combustion chamber around the edges of my squish band, but didn't look like it was compressed, more deposited. I can imagine it caused all sorts of detonation problems though. Which makes some sense now that you have me thinking about it. The "tapping" I heard sounded exactly like pinging, but seemed to be happening too often for pinging, and would also occur on decel. Maybe it actually was pinging, and when it is that carboned, it will ping that much. It's also clear that the valve seats had various carbon crusties caught in there at different times, and both the seat and the valve sealing edge suffered as a result. I haven't decided if I will replace the valves with new ones, or clean / measure / lap into place. I get a little side to side play on front crank, but nothing I can feel at all up and down. So that's really good news. I also still have to pull the lifters. Not sure if I will just replace them (only $9 each and only need 4) or if I will test them and just replace the bad ones. Given these things last 100k miles easy on a Ford, replacing them at 30k may just be wasting $40 unless one shows up not holding pressure. If one is bad I will definitely replace all four though. I wonder how much the valves are... They are going to be hard to clean without hurting the underlying metal. I hit the piston top and the combustion chamber with a dremel and a rubber polishing wheel, that was the only way I could get the carbon off. That was fine for those, but I'm sure it was removing material, so I would be hesitant to use it on a valve stem. Though I suppose the places where it is carboned are the places that aren't part of the sealing anyway. | ||
| Sagehawk |
I put kibblewhite valves in flhr. $25.00 apiece. Used stock lifters tho. what is it about 25000 mile lifters in the evolutions tho? Sportsters n buells don't seem to have that issue do they? anyhow , how is the build going now? | ||
| Reepicheep |
I decided to pull both heads. The rear one was bought used (to replace the original that had the frame mounts shared in an accident). It had 10k when bought (presumably) and I just did a light cleaning and put in new seals. Pulling it now 10k later, it also had pitting on the mating surface of valve and seat. Cycle Rama quoted me a repair price that seems very fair for the work they would do, and I have a local shop that I want to talk too as well. I suspect I'll go with Pammy and Wes, as I know they speak Buell. I'll also just replace the lifters using the HD cup but the aftermarket lifters, they are only like $15 each. It was also interesting that the oil that came out of at least one of the lifters was milky white, like it had a lot of water in it. I don't know why that would be the case, the rest of the crankcase oil is pure and perfect 50 weight. Now I have to figure out how to clean out the cylinder rings, I'd prefer to do it without taking them off the connecting rods so I don't have to mess with the wrist pin and circlips. And does anyone know if there is a spec for minimum diameter of the piston as a service limit? I know they quote that for Japanese thumpers, and the pistons often have to be replaced, so I'm used to checking that, but I couldn't find the spec for the Buell. Maybe the HD pistons are just that much beefier they don't wear out that way. | ||
| Sagehawk |
Reepicheep: did not mean to leave you hanging out. wife had a porch swing fall with her at a house warming and now we are looking at rotator cuff surgery. Yeah, that sucks. anyhow, the book calls for a new cylinder at bore diameter of 3.4978". Max of 3.5008". that's .003" wear. measure pistons in torque plates to see where your at. I do know my old husky 250 and the wifes old kdx175 pistons would start slapping around .003" clearance. You may check in a wiseco catalog, or call someone like zippers or s&s to see what there recommendations are. It's strange that they would not offer piston minimum limits but the manual does say to purchase new piston and cylinders when the cylinder maximum size is reached. those bastages, always wanting our hard earned money. If your pistons show no sign of scuffing or scoring, I would go back with them. you spoke of your cylinders looking really good already. now if your clearance is up at that .003 or more, then look again. you may wind up with a noisy motor. Keep posting! | ||
| Buell_bert |
Hey Reep how is this job going and thanks for the help on my M2 tranny job. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Thanks Sage and Bert! I don't know how its going, beyond knowing it is in the very capable hands of the queen of the universe at Cycle Rama... | ||
| Reepicheep |
Update... Cycle Rama did a great job on the heads, I couldn't be happier. I put it back together with a Cometic gasket kit (which was cheaper and I think better than the Harley kit). DAMHIK: If you accidentally swap the rocker box covers, everything will look fine, right up until you are raising the engine back into the frame and hear a $35 crunch noise coming from your front PCV valve (may it rest in peace). DAMHIK: If you crunch your front PCV valve, but want to ride anyway, you can swap the valve covers back to their right places, and use the crunched PCV valve pieces with some silicone epoxy "rescue" tape to get by until Al can ship you a new one. I also replaced the lifter with the autozone lifters at $10 each. You have to take one part out (cap with hole where the pushrod sits) and swap it over. This may not actually be necessary, but the hole is a different size, and those caps are nicely broken in to their associated push rod anyway. Put the bike back together (with only one extra screw and one crunched PCV valve), and fired it up, and.... Ta-Da! The mystery tap / ping is gone... whatever it was. Bonus! I don't know if it was the previously bad valves, or the now "magic" porting job Wes and Pammy did for me, but the bike now lifts the front wheel much more easily in first and second gear. It didn't do that before. That wasn't my goal, but I'm not complaining about more power. Total budget for DIY? 1) $100 to $400 for headwork including shipping, depending on how much you want done. I highly recommend Cycle Rama. 2) $100 or less for the Cometic top end Gasket Kit (which Pammy can secure for you if Cycle Rama does the heads). 3) $40 for four new lifters from auto zone. 4) $30 to $60 for new oil and filter. 5) $15 for new front exhaust torca clamp if you aren't in the mood to live dangerously. No special tools beyond torque wrenches (foot pound and inch pound), a cut down allen wrench for the velocity stack, and miscellaneous allen, socket, and torx wrenches in both SAE and Metric. A dremel tool with soft foam polishing wheels were the only way I could effectively de-carbon anything. But you have to keep it off mating surfaces, as it likely removes aluminum in the process. Timewise, just what it takes to rotate the engine down, and strip it down past the jugs. I left my pistons on the rods and cleaned and reused them (they looked fine, we will see if I regret that). I accidentally reused my cam cover gasket also, we will see if that also is something I regret... its holding fine right now. The Cometic kit also has different (better probably) exhaust gaskets. They don't look like they will squish up and occlude flow like the factory harley "lead mesh" ones always do. All in all not a terrible job, but shipping to Fl meant the bike sat for a while. Now I'm wondering if carbon build up isn't responsible for some of the crank failures. What happens when the squish band is full of carbon, but keeps getting more? How can that not hurt the crank with a death by a thousand cuts as the motor tries to become a diamond factory? I've only put about 20 miles on it since putting it back together, I'll update as conditions warrant. Thanks Pammy and Wes at Cycle Rama, and Al at American Sportbike! |
