Jeezus f***in' ch***t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

so, I took the bike for a ride on Sunday and pulled over on the side of the road to make a small adjustment to my jetting (Flo-Commander). I re-start the engine and am suddenly faced with a knocking sound emanating from the engine.... WTF????????????????? I move close to teh engine to try to locate the source of the sound and am unable to locate it with any precision. Needless to say, the bike went home on a lift...... I just dropped it off at the dealer's and got a call informing me it's likely something serious (rod bearing,......). Further to a search executed here, I saw that failure of one of the springs in the primary gear drive may be responsible for a sound that is very similar...... I sure hope so, I told the dealer to have a look first before pulling teh engine..... otherwise I face a rather expensive repair bill...... I have to admit at this point I am left wanting to part the piece of s**t out and move on to an FZ-09........ this, and the steering head bearing crap........ I am f***in' pissed.........

dibs on the wheels

KIDDING

I'm sure you'll get it worked out!

Here's hoping it's something simple and relatively inexpensive.

What steering head bearing issue?

James

the steering neck has gone oval (thanks to our fine third-world roads)..... the bearing race is now held in place thanks to dimples and sleeve retaining compound.... in short, living on borrowed time....... as I said, an FZ-09 is looking more appealing by the minute........

Have you ridden an fz09?

not yet...... but it seems to check all the right boxes at this point......

Dont part out your bike, if you do then i will spend way more money then i actually have... lol

But seriously, you own one of the very few bikes on this forum that put me in awe and wish i could afford half of what you throw into that bike... i wish you luck and hopefully its something simple

And no one said you cant have two bikes... lol
Well atleast not on this forum

I love it when it's running good, but I can't afford to keep dropping $2-3K every 20K miles... all this is causing me to wonder how well the rebuild jobs were done; the thing ran like a top for the first 100K miles, and all my problems began afterwards, despite choosing premium components (JE pistons, Carrillo rods, DLC coating on various parts,.....)... this kind of crap shouldn't be happening, especially when the bike is extremely well cared for and not abused in any way....

I have found that when rebuilding engines it is not he quality of the parts installed, but instead the quality of the installer installing the quality parts.

All my rebuild issues have always been because of mistakes i made during the rebuild process. Very rarely has it been a component failure.

James

Your story really sucks mik! :(:(
Hell if I were you I'd be thinking about another motor... way too much time, money, love etc already in. It's like a marriage bud, divorce isn't an option. Maybe some counseling with your mechanic will help heal the fresh wound.

That stinks.

Probably not worth using the Lord's name in vain, but it does suck.

Love hurts!

If it is the anti rattle gear I have a complete one that I would be happy to send you!

It would be a shame to scrap your bike!

I removed it about 2 years ago.

Yeah, a motor swap is not that big a deal. Plus, you cant happily dig in to the motor in the frame so you can just swap it and work on the errant motor on the bench.

Couple days work and you have a new heart in the old girl.

One race season I did like 10 or 11 motor swaps each time overnight to get on track the next morning.

There is a lonely VTR rotting behind my office (NOT My Baby, mind U)

I've been meaning to ask the guy who owns the car repair whats up with it. Looks like it was in an accident.

Going to inspect today to see what parts are worth salvaging....

Sorry about your troubles Milkstr! Hopefully it is not as bad as you assume. Let us know the updates. Looks like you have a lot of brothers and sisters willing to help on forum.

It's really frustrating when you get such a beauty on the road and then something happens to cause you to believe that all the time, money and care you put into the bike is all for naught. I hope it's something cheap that caused the noise.
An FZ-09 with some suspension work and a few add ons looks pretty good to me now too. My VTR is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Bottom end knocking like rod or main bearings don't usually just start. There is usually a slight tapping warning that gets progressively louder.

My thoughts exactly...... and yet the knock appeared suddenly in this case......

Have checked to see if the items attached to the crank ends are still properly secured? Possibly a bent woodruff key on the flywheel.

Here I thought I was having a bad week because I need to take one of my mufflers back apart to fix a leak.....

Sorry to hear about this and hope it is minor.

Not going to tell you what to due either way if it is not......but the wheels and forks would probably fit on whatever was next.

Let us know what happened and again hope it is a simple fix

well, I just got off the phone with the dealer further to a teardown of the engine and the guilty party is.... the crank, which is snapped (!). Thankfully, everything else is ok. I am surprised this happened as the bike was never abused, but I guess the 250,000 km of use finally got the best of it. Now the quest for a decent replacement crank begins.......

Can you get one in carbon?

Seriously, happy to hear it's something you're going to fix.

Wonder if it got weakened when they lightened it? I would check to see where the break happened at...... but good thing it happened at low RPM.... :shock:

ever the joker..... :)

oh snap!!





the crank....

Good to hear you aren't filling for divorce. You know the saying... till death do us part.

In an odd way, I am relieved to know the failure was not caused by shoddy workmanship during the last rebuild.... though it won't reduce the outlay of cash, sadly......