Monday, March 4, 2013

Heart of the Beast




Josephine came with a major oil leak at the crank pin.  After thinking about options/opinions that ranged from "just ride it!" to "split the cases", I decided to look a little closer at the replacement seal that was on the bike. My buddy Nelson, the previous owner, only rode the bike for an hour after he replaced the seal because it did not cure the leak, thinking now that the stack-up of thrust washers/ roller bearing cages may have been installed incorrectly by whoever owned it in the past.  Fearing a massive flywheel/crank-pin failure Nelson intelligently decided to park it and decide his next move. Other projects popped up and years went by until he realized he was probably not going to get to it - so he sold it to me. Hoping that the leak came from a motor that had sumpped for some reason, verses a part missing between the flywheels and the crank-pin seal, I got it up on the lift and tore into it. The seal DID NOT want to come out which was very strange since I knew Nelson had just slipped it onto the crank-pin without using any force or lock-tight.  Once Greg, Kevin and I got the seal off (two solid hours of prying and pulling with various home made tools), I could peer into the heart of the beast.  Terry told me beyond the seal I could (carefully) remove half a bearing cage and it's rollers for inspection (everything looked perfect) - beyond that there would be a washer separating the two cages (it can be seen in the bottom pic).  Everything seemed OK until I looked at the factory exploded view of the assembly. In the factory illustration there is a washer between the outer cage and the seal - this washer was not on my bike - it was missing.  The problem is I don't know if the Gary Bang type replacement seal takes the place of this washer?  Does anyone out there know if that outer washer is required when using an aftermarket seal?  Or, if the absence of that washer would cause a leak?  There really shouldn't be more that a few ounces of oil in the cases while the motor is running - maybe the cause of the problem is actually in the oil pump which looks original and untouched?  Hmmm.......

1 comment:

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