FJ1346 from ashes to... Well, we'll see...

[Arnie]

SHIT!  You've done so much good work, and documented it all so well to help all of us.

Please tell us that was a "spare" that you were practicing your superman talents on (since phone books are becoming rare).
I hate those kind of paperweights.  But I have a few :-(

Arnie

[skymasteres]

Nice work mate, really like the dash panel you've made  ,, is that an rc car temp sensor, have a few of those here, never thought to use them on a real bike

It's a Duratrax digital engine temperature gauge. It's designed for those little 0.49-2.5cc engines that people use on their gas buggies. Nice and small with a short wire to go around the cylinder head. It doesn't care that I have it wrapped around the spark plug instead. The reason for it's placement is the sensor wire is too chart to reach anywhere else. I didn't lengthen the wire because I wasn't sure if it was a thermistor based sensor, or a real thermal couple. If it's a resistor you can just lengthen the wire. If it's a thermal couple you need to make a new wire to the length you want then attach it. (Otherwise you create new junctions and the calibration will be off)

[ribbert]

Well, that sucks big time. I guess the source of the metal that kept appearing has now been revealed.

You can't leave us hanging after all this time. Please report when you find the gremlin that caused it.

In the meantime, pick up a cheap motor somewhere and at least keep riding the bike, it might dull some of the pain.

Noel

[fj11.5]

Cool, thought it may have been,, easier  than using  an infra red temp gauge everytime you check

[skymasteres]

Okay guys, I'll have to dig for answers but for now I feel like an old stage actor muttering
"The show must go on..."

WAIT!  WHAT DID I MISS?  
Looks like time for XJR rods...or Carrillos...

I am still trying to figure that out. Unless you mean literally to which the answer is I had a
catastrophic engine failure. And Randy is correct, they are XJR rods.

What the hell happened (besides it broke).....?

Well, I won't know for sure what happened until I do an autopsy. I can offer a hypothesis based
on the connecting rod that got spit out though.  Looking at the way it bent, and the type of failure
at the broken end I can say with some amount of certainty that the rod bent under a MAJOR compression
load, then failed in tension. If I had to guess I'd say that one or both of the connecting rod bolts
partially stripped allowing there to be play on the big end. Considering the failure happened at 6000rpm
that broken rod would have had plenty of energy with which to blow the hole in the block when it came
loose.

SHIT!  You've done so much good work, and documented it all so well to help all of us.

Please tell us that was a "spare" that you were practicing your superman talents on (since phone books are becoming rare).
I hate those kind of paperweights.  But I have a few :-(

Arnie

Thanks for the kind words Arnie. No, it wasn't the "practice" engine. One of my whole goals with this
thing was to do it once and do it right. After this last oil change I was figuring I'd go another thousand
miles and switch over to synthetic. Everything about this build was geared towards building a high
output engine that would stand up to another hundred thousand miles.

Well, that sucks big time. I guess the source of the metal that kept appearing has now been revealed.

You can't leave us hanging after all this time. Please report when you find the gremlin that caused it.

In the meantime, pick up a cheap motor somewhere and at least keep riding the bike, it might dull some of the pain.

Noel

I know that the excess metal was prior to the oil incident, but I don't know what part it came off of
that would have contributed to this failure. (I do have a sample of the oil from the last change. Maybe
I'll have it analyzed for metal content)   As for picking up a cheap motor, it'd have to be. I pretty much
put everything I didn't need into this project. I would like to get back on a bike. But I have too many
projects going right now.

I'll post when I know exactly what happened.


I suppose going back the scene of the crime is appropriate. (Sort of a NTSB interview)
So, morning of, I got the bike loaded up with my tank bag and set up the fuel air ratio meter.
It's funny, with all of the stuff I have up front it's turning into a cockpit.





Startup was perfectly normal, got on it and headed out. Before long I was cruising along at 6K with an oil
temp of 165. The temp was coming up so I started to sweep the RPM from about 3000-7000 rpm using
engine braking to get back down and then repeating. The fuel air ratio was doing better on the heavy
load end with the ratio only richening up to 10.5 to 1 vs 9 to 1 like it had been doing before. The interesting
thing though is that in the middle part of the load range the fuel air ratio was richer than it was before,
trending more towards 12.0 than 13.0 like it had before.  I started to knock it off because there was a weird
behavior between 7000-8000 rpm where the power would fall off then come back. I figured it was due to the
carbs but I can't tell exactly what the fuel air ratios were doing because it was changing too much for me to
catch. Hence I stuck with the lower RPMs where it was behaving.


The tragic thing was I was done with my "sweeps" and just settled back into droning along as I glanced
at the fuel air ratio it was at 14.2 at 6K with just a cruising load. Everything appeared normal when I felt
the bike jerk suddenly and simultaneously saw black chunks, that I thought were pieces of the tire, shoot
out to the front and left of me, bouncing along the road, and the rear end stepped way out.  After I got
the bike under control and had the clutch pulled in I realized that it couldn't be the rear tire because it
was rolling way too smoothly for it to be a flat. Then it was the realization that the engine wasn't running
anymore and the concern about what could have possibly come off the bike that would have looked like
chunks of black rubber. There was a little smoke visible as I looked over my shoulder while coasting so I
didn't hit the brakes. I just let it coast to a stop by the side of the road. (Took a whole mile to stop)

I'm glad I did because there was oil all over both tires.





Here is the oil trail from the last hundred feet or so.





I'm actually kind of suspicious that all of my oil was in the top end when the engine blew because it
was still dripping while I was loading it into the trailer 45 minutes later.





As for the carnage that everyone wants to see here it is.

Here's the connecting rod and bolt I found sitting in the chin fairing. (It's just amazing to me that it
was completely ejected from the engine)





So, my oil temp sensor is still hooked up and the oil cooler lines look okay.





There is the main drive gear. You can barely see it, but the cylinder sleeve is also damaged.

Damn....which hole is that from?

Randy - RPM

This one. It's a MAJOR hole. Both cases taken right out.





The tragic thing is that I had 1605 miles on this engine when it exploded. About 1 100th of the service
life I had hoped to get out of it...

Cool, thought it may have been,, easier  than using  an infra red temp gauge everytime you check

Certainly easier than trying to check it with the IR gun while on the move that's for sure.  

[fintip]

Wow. That's pretty heartbreaking.

I have to say, this build almost seemed cursed. I have never heard of so many issues. What's odd is that you seem like such a methodical guy. I just don't know how to reconcile that.

Sorry for your loss. I know I'd be pretty heartbroken right now.

Thanks for all the documentation; I learned a ton, and this thread is still a great resource to others.

Looking forward to the autopsy, hoping for some closure.

Give it a while and then get a spare beater engine, toss it in. Laugh at the irony. Sometimes it's all you can do.

This'll make for one hell of a bar story, though, at least, eh?

[fj1289]

First off, you must feel completely gutted at this point.  Sucks big time.

Guess it's a good thing you did great work on all the rest of the bike too -- it's definitely worth holding on to and putting it back on the road!

I'm still "making due" with a stock engine in the FJ1200 after the trailer theft over three years ago - and losing all the parts I had gotten back from the machine shop.  I can feel at least part of your pain...


The circumstances of the failure reminds me of the Pashnit FJ1200 engine failure:  http://www.pashnit.com/fj1200.htm

But, I almost spit a mouthful of water all over the screen when I read your response to Randy's question -- funny as hell

Damn....which hole is that from?

Randy - RPM

This one. It's a MAJOR hole. Both cases taken right out.

In a few years this will be great story to tell when someone is getting frustrated and ready to give up on their FJ ... until then it will sure hurt for a while

When you get into the autopsy well and figure what can be reused, post up what you need -- I'm sure folks here have some spares they'll be willing to come off of to help out.  I know I've got a few parts I'm not interested in selling, but would be willing to part with to help out with this situation.

Chris

[1tinindian]

Here you go fella!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-yamaha-fj1200-cases-/130951228131?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1e7d4d2ae3&vxp=mtr
Swap over some parts and you are back on the road to recovery!

Leon

[skymasteres]

Here you go fella!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-yamaha-fj1200-cases-/130951228131?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1e7d4d2ae3&vxp=mtr
Swap over some parts and you are back on the road to recovery!

Leon

Awesome. As much as I don't like jumping into things, I figure that's a great deal considering it'll
probably be a long while before I come across another usable set for that price...

[fj11.5]

Hell mate, that's deverstating  ,, you didn't have to break yours worse than mine just to show me up    ,,really hope you get her back on the road soon ,,,


Rod

[HARTLESS]

If I had enough money to even donate to my bike, I would donate some to yours because of how well you documented this thread! I hope you can get that eBay block for cheap

[1tinindian]

Here you go fella!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-yamaha-fj1200-cases-/130951228131?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1e7d4d2ae3&vxp=mtr
Swap over some parts and you are back on the road to recovery!

Leon

Awesome. As much as I don't like jumping into things, I figure that's a great deal considering it'll
probably be a long while before I come across another usable set for that price...

I see that it sold.
I hope you were the one that got it!

Leon

[FJ_Hooligan]

Wow, majorly depressing. :-(  Not sure what else to say about the failure.

However, one question that I've been wanting to ask.  I thought I saw a picture where the bearing surface was masked off so it wouldn't be coated.  You didn't coat any of the bearing surfaces did you?

[skymasteres]

 

I see that it sold.
I hope you were the one that got it!

Leon

Yeah, I got it Leon. I figure I can nickel and dime myself to death for a while. Thanks for the link.

Wow, majorly depressing. :-(  Not sure what else to say about the failure.

However, one question that I've been wanting to ask.  I thought I saw a picture where the bearing surface was masked off so it wouldn't be coated.  You didn't coat any of the bearing surfaces did you?

Actually I pretty much coated ALL of the bearing surfaces that had any sort of motion.
About the only sliding surface that wasn't coated were the camshaft journals.  This
includes the bearings themselves.  Well at least the load bearing parts. The back sides
of the bearings, the main bearing supports in the cases, the big ends of the rods
themselves, and the lifter bucket bores were not coated. 

Pretty much everything else got an oil retaining coating. 

[FJ_Hooligan]

So how did you compensate for the clearance that the coating took up in the bearings?