| Author | Message | ||
     Rayycc1 |
My GF and I went on a 1443 mile trip last weekend to Nags Head NC from Pittsburgh PA and back....Bike was running awesome at the beginning of the trip....But that soon changed ...when we got about 100 miles from VA Beach we hit standstill traffic and the bike almost immediately went into skip spark....and after that the bike was extremely hard to start after stopping for fuel or a rest stop. I was thinking maybe the plugs had fouled ....but couldn't find a set anywhere on the outer banks so we decided to just take back roads home so as not to hit more traffic. Basically the bike ran like hell all the way home....but it got us home. Upon pulling in my driveway the bike made a weird sound then quit and would not restart.... Long story short....My throttle shaft broke as i pulled into my driveway....and a small section of it made its way to one of the cylinders. I had already bought a replacement shaft from Tootal and have seals on hand....so guys and girls...Where do i start? And how do i get that small section of the shaft out of my motor short of pulling the heads? Any other advice you could give me on replacing this shaft would be awesome.....Looks like i'm playing Buell tech this weekend instead of riding  | ||
| Reepicheep |
I'd be less worried about the shaft in the motor, than I would be about the damage the shaft did in the motor. I doubt the shaft is still there. I would think you have to pull the heads. Maybe you can figure out which cylinder it went into by looking in the spark plug hole, and just pull that head. You could use a bore scope to look at the piston, but I think you would want a good look at the valve seating surfaces and all of the combustion chambers. Maybe you got lucky and it just shot in then out without incident... possible with some luck and a small piece. | ||
| Rayycc1 |
I was afraid of that. I didn't know what had happened at first...and earlier in the week i lost an airbox cover screw and i assumed when i heard a rattle that it was that screw vibrating around...it was not at all loud....and i think the piece is still in there. I guess i had better start reading the manual and see about how to rotate the engine. What ever its done can be repaired i would think/HOPE. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Hopefully it was a little piece that passed through with minimal damage. Its possible it didn't hurt anything and just bounced around chipping some carbon off before being ejected out the exhaust. | ||
| Callawegian |
I had a screw come of the butterfly valve on my riding mower carb a few years ago and it still runs like a top. | ||
| Ourdee |
I'd start by removing the throttle body. | ||
| Etennuly |
Pull your spark plugs first. Any damage will be obvious. Next do a compression test. This will let you know if the valves or seats are damaged. If it is all good, you may be in the clear if it still turns over well and does not knock or hammer. Then a bore scope camera will reveal what may be in the cylinders. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I agree with Vern here. Sparkplugs are the most easy way to get eyes on the situation. Crank it over by hand in 5th gear and look in there with a flashlight. Know any gun nuts that have a bore scope? | ||
| Etennuly |
I lost a hardened 5mm bolt down an intake of a new rebuilt 305 engine in a Chevy van one time. Had no idea it was in there until the test drive. I was amazed at how a hardened bolt hit all eight pistons in that engine. It did that in a one mile test drive. New set of heads and it was good to go. Thank goodness for 8:1 compression back then! It was an odd thing to diagnose. It had great oil pressure but was knocking. A stethoscope drove us nuts because the knock was moving around from cylinder to cylinder. That little bolt was bouncing through the intake ports of all eight cylinders, but never through an exhaust port. THAT made no sense. | ||
| Fotoguzzi |
what were you doing with a metric bolt around a chevy engine anyway? | ||
| Tootal |
Damn Ray, sorry to hear that. I'm in agreement with checking compression. I would pull the plug, rotate the engine until the valves are both closed and put some pressure in the cylinder through the plug hole and see if you hear any leaks. Bore scope would be awesome to see if its still in there. It's stainless and non magnetic so you'll need something sticky to pull it out if it's still there. | ||
| Wesman |
How many miles on the bike when it snapped? I've been wondering about a preemptive replacement on mine (Before I lose the part I bought from Tootal)  | ||
| Rayycc1 |
The bike has 18k miles on it now. I also ought the replacement shaft from Tootal...And i'm wishing i had replaced it BEFORE the thing broke. Speaking of the replacement...The shaft i got from Tootal had no pin in it for the TPS sensor and my old one isn't budging....any ideas on what to use for that pin? I got my hands on An inspection camera that would go thru the spark plug holes and also bought a leak down tester... I'm happy to say....I think the cylinders are fine...although I'm more than a little put off by the amount of carbon in my intake tract and in my cylinders....has anyone tried spraying water in the running motor to clean carbon deposits? The ingested piece of the shaft turned out to e a LOT smaller than i first thought...there seems to be a few places in the rear cylinder that had the carbon scraped off but i am sure that is the extent of the damage.  | ||
| Rayycc1 |
more pics of the inside of the combustion chamber    | ||
| Rayycc1 |
And a few pics of the nasty ass carbon buildup in my intake tracts   I did reroute my breathers although I believe all of this carbon is the result of the breathers being routed to the air cleaner....I also believe there is enough carbon buildup to hang up an intake valve every now and then...and the more i think about it...That would make the bike run as shown in another recent thread ....like poop | ||
| Tootal |
Ray, if you have a vise, take your old shaft and a 1/4" nut and place the tps pin into the nut. Now use the vise to push the pin into the nut. The pin is knurled in the middle so as soon as the knurled part is out the rest is easy.  | ||
| Wesman |
Thanks Raycc1 - now all I need is a break in the hot weather | ||
| Rayycc1 |
Thanks Tootal!!!!! thats exactly the info i needed.....and thank you for making these replacements! If it weren't for you ...i'd be in a much worse position | ||
| Reepicheep |
Looks like my (just finished being rebuilt) heads in terms of carbon build up.  Cycle Rama rocks, BTW. We need to figure out some way to minimize the carbon deposits this new ethanol based gasolines are creating. | ||
| Rayycc1 |
The breathers going to the air box are the main cause I'd think...but yeah ..ethanol sucks | ||
| Etennuly |
When I changed my intake gaskets a while back I was surprised by the amount of carbon in the intake. Like about 10% of the volume of the intake runner. It is hard oily stuff. Old engines would clean right out with water. I soaked my intake over night and got no results with water with dish soap in it. It had an oil film run out of and off from the carbon wall in there. I tried a few engine cleaning products and then I tried to chip it out and wire brush on a drill. I believe it is harder than the aluminum the intake is made of! I did not have a roto bit where I was when I was doing it, but it seems cleaning it out will be equivalent to porting it. | ||
| Rayycc1 |
Have any of you tried spraying water out of a spray bottle into the intake with the revs around 2500 ? there are tons of vids on you tube about doing that to get rid of the carbon. I know its gotta come out of there somehow...i truly believe that when these bikes cough back thru the intake its mainly carbon related. | ||
| Motorfish |
Good to hear you had no damage. I thought I heard to pour some Sea Foam in the intake while idling, shut if off right away, let it sit overnight, then start it up and rev it a bit, it blows out the carbon. I`ve never tried it myself, anyone try this? (Message edited by motorfish on September 07, 2014) | ||
| Griffmeister |
I think the water or the Sea Foam might knock some carbon off the top of the piston, but it probably won't do much for the intake. I just had my engine apart and I had to do some serious chipping and scraping along with extended soaking in Savosol to get the intakes fairly clean. You'll notice that the heaviest deposits are on the backside of the valve guide where airflow is understandably disrupted, so anything introduced in the intake will hardly touch it. Even the tops of the pistons took a lot of quality time on the wire wheel to get clean and still had to scrape the recesses of the valve reliefs. I ran a tank through with Sea Foam prior to this but not the direct injection method. Of course I still have the stock crankcase vent setup, I'm thinking that I really need to change that after seeing this. Gums up the throttle shaft/plate too making it sticky. Just seems like so little room to start running all that extra plumbing, have to check some posts on that with pictures. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I couldn't get it off with anything chemical. Sea foam did little. Carb cleaner did a little better on the soot and soft stuff, but not the crust and little on the volume. A brass brush on a dremel with lots of WD-40 type multi-purpose spray lube would do a little better. What finally got it were those polish impregnated soft foam dremel wheels. It would remove the build up well, and some aluminum under it, leaving a polished finish. There have been pictures from the intake tract from people with the breather re-route that look just like this same crusty mess. Breather routing may make it worse, but rerouting isn't making the problem go away. | ||
| Tootal |
I wonder what kind of valve guide seal Buell used. The Harley ones are junk and I always replace them with the spring loaded ones. If Buell used the same as Harley then I can see oil getting in there and just baking itself on every time you shut a hot engine off. These things run so hot it's just coking the oil like a turbo motor. | ||
| Buewulf |
I guy I know here had to rebuild his XB12S at 33K miles. His carbon deposits were substantial, and he had had a re-routed breather since almost new. | ||
| Reepicheep |
That's an interesting thought Tootal. Pammy sent me a Cometic kit, so that is what went back in. Not sure how much different they are, but they are blue instead of orange or black, so that must be better.  I'll let you know in another 30k miles. | ||
| Tootal |
Were they blue with a little spring around the top lip? Those work pretty good if that's what you got. | ||
| Griffmeister |
That's interesting, mine were orange but still have a spring around the top. Oh well, they're in there now and the engine's back in the bike. Too late now. |
