Busted Engine

[stevecbr]

Gave my bike in to the dealer today, now it's praying time

Any news relz??

 

[relz]

Any news relz??

Unfortunately no.

Last week I got a call from the mechanic a couple of days after giving in the bike. My first question was "Should I be sitting down for the news?"

He told me that he got authorisation from Yamaha Israel to open up my engine. At first I was surprised that he needed authorisation, seeing that that was the reason I took my bike in, but in retrospect I think he performed an external review first, and also checked my servicing record etc. in order to see that there is no obvious fault. So this sounds like good new, right?

The next sentence was that he's taking a week of vacation, so he'll start working on it as soon as he returns on September 1st... (still sounds OK).

So I call him yesterday, September 2nd, to ask how it's going and the this response: "didn't you hear from them?" (them = Yamaha Israel)
He said they gave him new orders, not to open up the engine, and that apparently they've decided not to check the engine at their expense.

Bastards!

I didn't manage to catch them Yesterday, so I'll try catching up with them tomorrow to see why they suddenly changed their mind. If the mechanic wouldn't have been on vacation last week, the engine would have been opened by now....

I'll keep you posted as this saga continues...

 

[RipGroove]

Unfortunately no.

Last week I got a call from the mechanic a couple of days after giving in the bike. My first question was "Should I be sitting down for the news?"

He told me that he got authorisation from Yamaha Israel to open up my engine. At first I was surprised that he needed authorisation, seeing that that was the reason I took my bike in, but in retrospect I think he performed an external review first, and also checked my servicing record etc. in order to see that there is no obvious fault. So this sounds like good new, right?

The next sentence was that he's taking a week of vacation, so he'll start working on it as soon as he returns on September 1st... (still sounds OK).

So I call him yesterday, September 2nd, to ask how it's going and the this response: "didn't you hear from them?" (them = Yamaha Israel)
He said they gave him new orders, not to open up the engine, and that apparently they've decided not to check the engine at their expense.

Bastards!

I didn't manage to catch them Yesterday, so I'll try catching up with them tomorrow to see why they suddenly changed their mind. If the mechanic wouldn't have been on vacation last week, the engine would have been opened by now....

I'll keep you posted as this saga continues...

Well that sucks! If your service record is up to date surely they should have no reason not to open the engine to look for a manufacturing fault.


Sent from my iPhone 

 

[Fulfilled-09]

Their response, that can't be right? Is your service record up to date, or have they seen an angle to shaft you?

 

[chump]

It's out of warranty. They don't have to do anything.

 

[Fulfilled-09]

Oh, didn't realise it was out of warranty. That will be a challenge, then.

 

[chump]

I have found Yamaha to be pretty good in the past i.e. this year they issued a recall for all XJRs back to 2007 for a revised oil nozzle. They also refunded an owner for a hefty engine repair bill caused by failure of said nozzle.

Of course, Israel may be different to the UK.

 

[Kinjane]

If Yamaha don't want to pay to find out what caused this damage then why not draw up a confidentiality agreement between yourself, the mechanic and his employers to ensure they don't
Or don't such things exist in Israel?

 

[LewFZ1]

Just looking at the photos , sorry but unless the leaking oil has caused a lot of discoloration around the headers and engine casings that does not look to me to be a well maintained bike. Unless I have missed the post you do not mention if your servicing/oil changes are as per Yamahas schedule. Something has punched a hole in the casing, my money says you have dropped a bottom end /con rod gone. This is either due to ragging the arse off the bike, missed a gear and hit the rev limiter or failure to maintain the correct oil level or grade of oil. When the engine cut out did the rear wheel lock up? If so the engine has seized and popped a rod or broken the crankshaft.

 

[relz]

Update time.

To keep a long story short... after much back and forth and phone calls, the local Yamaha dealer said that that there is no way they'll take responsibility for my engine due to the exhaust and fuelling changes that I've done.

At first they offered was to open up the engine and examine it, at their expense, give me a full quote for the cost of parts (with a substantial discount) and labour, and at that point I'll have the choice to either fix it through them or opt out and buy myself an engine elsewhere.
This was a bit disappointing, as I lost all hope of getting it done free, but at least I'd have them inspecting the engine and hopefully finding what went wrong.

But when push came to shove, the actual garage mechanic said that from and external examination he estimates that at least the engine head, a piston, a rod, the crankcase and other various parts will need to be replace. A quick search in the Yamaha parts catalog (for Israel) showed that the required parts would cost aprox. 30,000ILS (7900$) before factoring in the labour...
When I asked him what could have caused the problem, he seemed to be convinced that it must be my tinkering with the exhaust and fuelling.
So he rightfully said to me that no person in their straight mind would go down that route (although I was welcome to do so), hence buying a whole hand engine is a much cheaper options, and since that is the case he sees no point in labouring for hours to open up the whole engine and examine all the internals.
In other words he backed out.

So... I searched for an engine and to my luck found one locally which has only 7000km on the odometer. The engine is owned by a garage owner, who had a bad crash (during which he lost two fingers ) a few months ago. This makes things very convenient because once I got my bike to his garage he's doing the engine transplant on the spot, and gave me a reasonable price for engine + labour (12000ILS = 3200$), which is more or less what it would have cost me to buy an engine abroad and pay shipping + taxes, only this saves a lot of time and headache.

My bike should be out tomorrow. Finally!

Since I can't live without knowing what the engine looks like inside, this Weekend I'm meeting up with a few friends for a BBQ and Engine opening party. We'll all curious to see the internals of the engine, and it will be my first time cracking open one, so I'm sure it will be interesting regardless of if we actually find the cause. I'll make sure to take pics and post some of them here, perhaps some of you more experienced guys can work out what went wrong based on the photos.

My bike with the donor engine almost installed:
20160919_175830 by Ariel Zentner, on Flickr

 

[Fulfilled-09]

Glad to hear you've got an agreeable outcome, at last.

 

[RipGroove]

Awesome! Make sure you take a load of photos of every stage of taking the engine apart.

Also, I've not heard of any engines blowing up due to an aftermarket exhaust and a relatively small amount of fuelling tweaking?!


Sent from my iPhone 

 

[flydnb]

Good news mate .

 

[stevecbr]

did you ever take it apart? any photos?

 

[relz]

20161102_115639

Here you go, some engine porn for all:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/96794667@N08/11oP60

That's as far as I can go, seeing that I have no more insight or understanding other than what I've already posted. Now that all the evidence has been spread out, I'd really appreciate a proper autopsy report if any of you can supply one. i.e. given the evidence, what do you think happened?

BTW If anyone sees any parts that interest you, send me a note. The cylinder head, two pistons, oil cooler, oil pump, oil pan, gears, a cover and all kinds of small parts seem to be intact.
The crankshaft is damaged where that middle con rod connected, but the balancer shaft seems to be in pretty good shape, other than a couple of small scratches.

 

[LewFZ1]

I would say looking at that the middle unit bottom end has sheared a bolt and the bearing shells have slipped round a bit blocking the oil way and casing the engine to seize.There was sufficient momentum to then cause the con rod to snap and punch out the engine block. What are the other bits of Shrapnel on the tissue just above the pistons?

 

[satan's little helper]

possibly but more likely a con rod bolt. A flying object can only punch its exit wound out once, a rotational object gets a chance every time it comes round the bend

what an absolute bastard, i feel for you mate. They seem a good bunch on here i'm sure someone will be able to help.

 

[stevecbr]

Excellent photos on your Flickr account. I'm not an expert, so not sure if rod snapped first or conrod bolt failed first. Just as well you got a 2nd hand engine as there is not much salvagable left! Thanks for sharing and updating us Relz

 

[bloggsy]

LewFZ1 gives a good explaination to what may have happened or could it have been something simple like metal fatigue that caused the centre con rod to snap, we will never know

 

[relz]

I would say looking at that the middle unit bottom end has sheared a bolt and the bearing shells have slipped round a bit blocking the oil way and casing the engine to seize.There was sufficient momentum to then cause the con rod to snap and punch out the engine block. What are the other bits of Shrapnel on the tissue just above the pistons?

The other shrapnel are parts of the crankcase that were presumably smashed by the con rod

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