| Author | Message | ||
     Skifastbadly |
Ok, so I'm riding around in the middle of nowhere yesterday and there's this sudden change in exhaust sound (MUCH louder) and rather large and immediate increase of heat on my leg so I pull over. WTF? The first thing I notice is that the flange which holds the header onto the front cylinder isn't doing so...in fact it's come completely off and has slid down to where the pipes join? How could this have happened, I ask myself? Hmmm. Less than 1000 miles ago I had the dealer replace my head gaskets, I bet those bastards didn't torque the nuts on properly. Anyway, I was able to limp to a town just a mile or so away, and luckily the hardware store was open. Good, now all I have to do is find the right nut size (5/16", fine, for your future reference), wait for the beast to cool, and put them on. I did. Started it up again, and guess what? JUST as loud. Oh oh, it's more than I thought. Feeling around, the BACK flange is off too! And no way to get at that in a 'field repair' mode. OK, so now I ride the thing home, about 15 miles of "looks like a ADV bike, sounds like a HD with straight pipes". Later, as I'm poking around trying to figure out how much of the bike I'm going to disassemble to put the bolts on the back, I feel no metal where there should be metal. JESUS! There's a HOLE in the back header, about the size of a silver dollar, at the top, right after where it should be joined! Now I have to replace the header? I'm suddenly putting lots of dough into this bike. Now the questions: Has ANYONE here experienced or heard of a header failure? Is it connected (Could it be?) to the headers not being properly connected? Today's the fourth, but I'll be calling the dealer on Tuesday, so if you guys have any ideas, much appreciated. (Cross posted on ADV for purposes of maximizing feedback.) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Sucky. Odd that they would BOTH come off at the same time. Does seem odd that the failure would come so soon after the head gasket replacement unless a step had been missed. People are human. They might have forgotten to tighten the header nuts down. Hopefully they will get to the bottom of the issue and take care of the problem. All in all, a header replacement isn't that expensive. It could be a lot worse. | ||
| Jphish |
I've heard of them coming off due to broken brackets, bolts etc. - but a HOLE ?? Have no idea how that happened. Never heard of it, except on old bikes with lots of miles where time and oxidation took their toll. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Skifastbadly- I think that's a first, for Ulys or any XB for that matter. The nuts have been known to work loose on the flanges or the studs have occasionally broken (due to loose nuts). It sure sounds like your dealer goofed up. I can't imagine how you could have possibly gotten a hole in it. Since you're doing this by feel maybe something else is going on? O2 sensor fell out maybe? Try removing the seat and if necessary the air box cover and base plate. That may let you see what the problem is, or wait until you can take back to the dealer. | ||
| Skifastbadly |
"I can't imagine how you could have possibly gotten a hole in it. Since you're doing this by feel maybe something else is going on? O2 sensor fell out maybe?" Hugh, you're a genius. I wondered about it too, and your question caused me to go back and poke around. Sure as hell, there's a sensor dangling down there, and I should have know it was something like that, as the edges were smooth....too smooth. Is it possible to get to that area without rotating the engine? There's no mention of the O2 sensor in the shop manual that I can see. Thanks | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Loose O2 sensor. Loose/missing exhaust hardware. Sounds like someone got rushed or distracted finishing up the job and didn't double check that everything was tight. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Craig- Glad it turned out to be something non-catastrophic. Not sure if you'll be able to reach it without rotating the engine or not. Here's a photo showing the headers with the 02 sensor barely visible from Dr_greg's cylinder head/spark plug hole repair thread:  The engine is rotated forward in this shot, so the 02 sensor is obviously buried WAY back up in the frame with the engine bolted in place. I'd start by removing the seat and looking through the frame openings above the rear cylinder head to see if you can even see it. If it's not accessible from above, maybe if you remove the cooling fan it would be accessible through that opening? I suspect this is one for the dealer who hosed it up in the first place. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I'd let the dealer who did the last work mess with it. | ||
| Barker |
+1 on letting the dealer fix it, but,,,,,, Remove the seat and look thru the fan that should give a you some what of a view of where the O2 sould live. You can reach the o2 sensor easily to replace/remove, if you remove the fan. DAMHIK. refer to manual but: IIRC remove seat jack bike @ muffler unbolt holding bracket to shock res. unbolt preload adjuster (handcrank wheel under left side of seat) unsrcrew ecm to move it, leave it plugged up. move the ecm to get a better handle on shock res when you remove shock asm. unbolt shock (two bolts one nut) wiggle out shock asm. unbolt fan, make sure you get all of the bolts some are hard to see/get to. twist/wiggle fan asm out (good luck, that's the hardest part) unhook the 12v connetor of fan before you rip it out. reverse the process w/ new fan and use some loctite on shock bolts. (Message edited by barker on July 04, 2009) | ||
| Kimberley |
So....if I'm understanding this thread correctly......I'm gonna have to rotate the engine to remove the pipes?? I was considering either wrapping them or coating them. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Yep, you have to rotate the engine to remove the pipes. You can wrap them in place. | ||
| Skifastbadly |
It looks like the metal around the sensor in the header failed. There's an oval shaped hole and a likewise shaped piece of header material attached to the sensor. In order to eliminate dual posting, I'll continue the discussion and provide the results here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10 265707#post10265707 | ||
| Skifastbadly |
I've updated this on ADV at this site, with graphic, grisly photographs. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10 304626#post10304626 | ||
| Hardlya |
I would wager that the only thing holding the header in place was the O2 sensor against the frame. Once the flange of the O2 failed, the weight of the header and muffler dropped the pipes away from the cylinder heads!! |
