| Author | Message | ||
     Bluzm2 |
Subtitle, no good deed goes unpunished – Life and death of a 2000 S3 The plan for Sunday was actually pretty straight forward. Go to church, come home, load Techno Research software and make sure everything works correctly. Install race ECM on neighbors son’s 2000 S3 and zero TPS, Swap rear shock (old one was leaking like a sieve) and test ride. Installing the ECM was no big deal, takes longer to pull the tail section than to install the ECM. Once the ECM was in place I played around with the reset software a bit and got familiar with the program and it’s interface. Neat program but a bit quirky and fussy. Resetting the TPS was very straight forward. Didn’t take much time at all. Maybe 15 min max. The rear shock swap was equally straight forward. Luckily, my son’s S2 has the same shock. Just had to whip up a length pf pipe with flattened ends and holes drilled 16.5 inches apart to take the place of the shock. I had my first warning that things were not going to go my way. I used my BIG steel vice to flatten the ends of a piece of ¾ in black pipe. While doing the 2nd end, the vice broke. This is akin to breaking an anvil, not a good sign. Once the donor shock was available, it only too 10 minutes to remove the bade one and replace it. Then off to the test ride! My favorite part of a repair job. The S3 ran perfect, no stumbling, no flat spots. Just a nice hard pull throughout the RPM range. I did however notice a bit of midrange surge at cruising speeds. I figured I’d check for intake leaks as the bike is 6+ years old. The intake seals don’t usually last that long anyway. Back to the “Crisis Center” to grab a can of starting fluid to check for leaks. Another omen, I’m totally out. Both cans are empty. Still on the shelf but empty.. My neighbor (the Dad of the bikes owner and one of my best friends) runs to his house to grab a can. With can in hand and aiming straw in place, I reach to start the S3. I hit the starter and am met with a HORRIBLE clatter coming from the engine. I hit the kill switch in about 2 nano seconds. Dave looks at me, I look back at him, we both had that “What the F***” look on our faces. It was a VERY bad sound deep in the motor. Dave says “try it again”. I hit the starter and am met with more bad sounds. The bike will not start… By now, my brain is on full boost. I’m going through everything we did to determine if it was anything we did that could have caused the problem. The sounds the motor was really bad, I knew the only way to figure it out was to start pulling it apart. As everyone knows, you start with the easy stuff. The bike went on the lift and diagnosis began. I started by checking the primary. When I removed the primary inspection cover, I was the primary chain was very loose. I started to relax a bit, I figured it could be the tensioner that broke and a chunk was wedged in a bad place. I raised the rear wheel, put the tranny in 5th, pulled the plugs and slowly rotated the motor. It stopped in the same place every time going forward or reverse. I’m still thinking it could be a tensioner issue so off comes the primary cover. The tensioner shoe was the old style but intact. So much for that theory. A quick tranny test by pulling in the clutch and turning the rear wheel eliminates the tranny. It’s the motor itself. Next step is to pull the rear rocker box cover to check valve action. It looks OK. Even after pulling the whole rocker box, the motor would not do a full 360 revolution. I went for the rear cylinder first as that’s the one that was on the compression stroke. I could see the piston through the sparkplug hole. It was getting stopped just before TDC. You could hear a slight clunk as you approached TDC. No question, the head had to come off. As I worked on the left side stuff Dave worked on removing the stock air cleaner and such. Shortly after he started that task he held up a part and said “What’s this thing I found laying in the bottom of the air box?”. It was the crescent shaped piece of metal that holds on the snorkel tube. I went and looked and saw there was only one screw holding it in place. The one towards the rear of the throttle body was missing. The other one was loose enough that the hold down plate fell into the bottom of the air box. The other bolt was missing……. A quick look into the throttle body and seeing the butterfly eliminated that from the equation. After removing the throttle body, intake manifold, tie bar support, head bolts etc, the head was ready for removal. I’m sure you can guess what we found…. a MAJOR mess as you can see by the pictures below. You guessed it, the damn bolt came out and got sucked into the motor!!! Results so far are one rear Thunderstorm head, one piston, one exhaust pushrod, one bent exhaust valve, one primary tensioner, possible other valve train damage as well. I’ll have to pull the cam cover to check the pinion drive and such. Man, what a mess!!!! The bad news, the motor is really hurt. The good news is that it happened in my garage. If it happened 15 minutes later, Dave’s son would have been on his way home when it let loose. You should have seen the look on his face when he came over to get the bike. It was on the lift in pieces. The look of confusion on his face was only outdone by the relief on mine from knowing it wasn’t anything I did….just plain dumb luck and timing. He was there when I pulled the head so he saw it first hand. The damn screw was imbedded in the piston, it had to be pulled off with a pliers. OK, now I have a couple of questions for the experts out there. I know these bottom ends are tough, do I need to worry about big end rod issues? I don’t think the rear rod was bent but I haven’t checked yet. I’ll do that tonight. Since the exhaust pushrod was bent, I’m figuring the lifter is trash. I need to check the entire valvetrain for damage. Anything to keep any eye out for other than the obvious? Anyway you look at it, we have a mess on our hands… What a day.. Brad   Oh yeah, one more thing. The intake seals WERE leaking!!! | ||
| Naustin |
Holy Crap! I thought about you yesterday and wondered how the TPS reset was treating you - I never imagined you'd be up to your elbows in the motor at the time! That sucks!! I know exactly which bolt that is. I've had it off more than once. I'm going to check it when I get home! Damn!  | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Remember boys and girls, with these paint shakers, Loctite is your best friend!!! Don't leave home without it! | ||
| 65460 |
I feel your pain brother. I had that happen on a big block Ford a few years ago | ||
| Bluzm2 |
The saga contines! I just got a call from the bike's owner. He contacted the warranty folks at HD as he had purchased an extended warranty when he bought the bike last fall. They said the warranty doesn't cover anything in the "air cleaner"! Needless to say, he went off on them. He demanded they refund his warranty. they are giving him $900 of the $1300 he paid last fall. Man I hope the crank is OK. Brad | ||
| Naustin |
Those "warranties" are such bullshit. They are more accurately known as Service Contracts. The dealer isn't doing him any favors, that is for sure. They are only canceling the contract - which you can do at any time, with no penalty by terms of the contract. Too bad they depreciate on the rule of 78 and $400 has already been chewed up. | ||
| Fullpower |
perhaps I misread or overlooked the portion of your story which described the origin of the bent bolt embedded in the piston. What was the original purpose of the offending piece of hardware? | ||
| Bluzm2 |
It was to hold the Helmzhold snorkle tube in place. It's one of three that hold the snorkle to the throttle body. | ||
| Leftcoastal |
You may be in for a bit of good (though 'good' is REALLY relative here) luck - It may be able to all be fixed with a valve job, a piston, (with related honing for size, etc.) new pushrods and some gaskets. Since you didn't run the bike under high rpm, there's a chance of just local damage, with the bottom end likely OK. You can bet on the valves being bent, and the piston will be weakened if not cracked, but I'm willing to bet those parts took the brunt of the force and the rod and bottom end will be just fine. A couple of years ago I had a couple of 1/4" AN-type washers (from the bolts that hold my turbo plenum to the carb that came loose - just like yours did) go through both cylinders while the bike was running. Other than a lot of chipped off carbon and having both spark plugs gapped to 0 by the washers, there was NO damage to the motor! The turbocharger was a bit the worse for that, though, as they tend to be unable to easily assimilate anything harder than compressed air! AL | ||
| Bluzm2 |
That's kind of what I'm hoping for. The piston is shot as is the head. The push rod is also bent. I figure the lifter is also shot. I need to pull the cam cover to check the drive pinion key. If the key is sheared, I may have more damage in the front cylinder. I'll know more tomorrow. Brad | ||
| Road_thing |
Oh, Brad, that sucks... rt | ||
| Psyclonej |
Had the exact same thing happen to my motor a few weeks ago. Right in the driveway. What a shame I thought. Made me start smoking again. | ||
| Rainman |
Helmzhold snorkle tube? That sounds expensive, My H-D dealer charged me $900 when the knuten valve's henweigh busted a sneezepin. | ||
| Leftcoastal |
Yea - Rainman - that happened to me, too, but my henweigh took out the left sneezepin, and bent the right side one into the snerdler ring, breaking the frambulator in the process. Cost me $1850 and a BSA crankcase. I safety-wire 'em now and haven't had any more trouble. AL | ||
| Rainman |
WOW!!!! A case of crank is expensive in Virginia!!!!  Oooh, sorry. Inappropriate drug reference. My bad  | ||
| Cataract2 |
Ow, least you found the problem. New piston and head there needs it looks like. Ouch.... | ||
| Akbuell |
Really a not too good, very awful terrible day! So sorry to see/hear about such a thing. And a sincere thank you for the post; I WILL add a safety wire back-up to the Loctite! |
