This Could Happen To You!

djelliott · Post by **djelliott** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:51 pm

So, a bit ago myself, POC Phil, his wife, and a bunch more from the club took a long scoot out to go canoeing. On the way back we were doing a bit of racing on some of the longer straights to test out the abilities of the new Kymco Yager that Phil's wife was on. On one particular straight I gunned it and as I was racing up a hill I heard the sound many of us fear. PANG!! RATTLERATTLE RATTLE!!! My first instinct of course was "OH F@!K I floated a valve and it made nice nice with my piston!" I felt it odd though that I had no real lose of power. We pulled into a parking lot and assessed the noise. We all came to the conclusion that it sound more like a cam chain issue. Fortunately we had one of POC's trucks carrying our gear so to be safe we loaded up my bike.

That night I started tearing the motor down to do the forensics and found the most peculiar thing. My lower cam chain guide had broken free and flipped over and was systematically being ground to pieces by the chain. Now this is something I have NEVER heard of but with intense modding of a bike there can be strange circumstances. So I accepted that and ordered the new guide.

After I pulled the head, replaced the gaskets and reinstalled the new guide I was putting the bike back together and found what I am certain is the culprit for this odd scenario. I picked up my fan cover and noticed that it had sucked up a plastic bag and it was completely chocking off the essential supply of air the motor needs to stay cool. That lack of air and the excessive load I was putting on the bike at the time caused the motor to get really hot. Heat can cause bad things. I'm lucky it only melted the chain guide enough to break it free and not something worse. Unfortunately after I got it all together and fired it up I still had some noise. I rechecked and realized my cam chain is junk now too because of this so I'm waiting on one of those.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Check your fan cover periodically for foreign objects. It's really easy. Just bend down there and take a look. The fan and the black plastic case around your motor are it's only cooling system. Without it, well, you see what happened. I hope this story prevents disaster for someone else. See the photo below.

Dustin

jfrost2 · Post by **jfrost2** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:04 pm

This happened to me once just in my garage, a plastic bag flew in from outside, and got sucked in almost. I noticed immediately and pulled it out.

djelliott · Post by **djelliott** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:06 pm

jfrost2 wrote:This happened to me once just in my garage, a plastic bag flew in from outside, and got sucked in almost. I noticed immediately and pulled it out.

Wish I would have noticed this one. I don't even know how long it was in there.

jfrost2 · Post by **jfrost2** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:48 pm

I noticed because of the sound of the engine, it became very very high pitch and the RPM's were getting so high, like it was forcing itself to suck in air harder and harder, but couldnt because of the bag blocking 90% of the intake.

jijifer · Post by **jijifer** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:17 pm

I took off my cover per the suggestion of Scootertrash a while back. I think that is keeping it from creating a tunnel to pull things up thru and (knock on wood) nothing has been sucked into to. I was worried at first that debris would get in and clog things up. It stays remarkably more clean than anything else on the undercarriage area.

broke · Post by **broke** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:21 pm

jfrost2 wrote:I noticed because of the sound of the engine, it became very very high pitch and the RPM's were getting so high, like it was forcing itself to suck in air harder and harder, but couldnt because of the bag blocking 90% of the intake.

But the cooling fan isn't the source of air for combustion... that's from your air-box/filter. The fan Dustin shows is the cooling fan and I think its electric / completely isolated from the gas operation of your engine? Perhaps the overheating condition of the engine lowered your power output and you were gunning it to compensate?

broke · Post by **broke** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:24 pm

Oh, and I wish I had your mechanic skillz Dustin! I hope the chain is the last of the broken bits for you.

djelliott · Post by **djelliott** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:13 pm

broke wrote:
jfrost2 wrote:I noticed because of the sound of the engine, it became very very high pitch and the RPM's were getting so high, like it was forcing itself to suck in air harder and harder, but couldnt because of the bag blocking 90% of the intake.
But the cooling fan isn't the source of air for combustion... that's from your air-box/filter. The fan Dustin shows is the cooling fan and I think its electric / completely isolated from the gas operation of your engine? Perhaps the overheating condition of the engine lowered your power output and you were gunning it to compensate?

Yeah, a blocked cooling fan would have no effect on the gas/air side of the motor. Nah Broke, I was purely gunning it for fun

. I'm sure it didn't help my motors heat situation.

djelliott · Post by **djelliott** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:14 pm

jijifer wrote:I took off my cover per the suggestion of Scootertrash a while back. I think that is keeping it from creating a tunnel to pull things up thru and (knock on wood) nothing has been sucked into to. I was worried at first that debris would get in and clog things up. It stays remarkably more clean than anything else on the undercarriage area.

That's what I'm going to do.

UnionZac · Post by **UnionZac** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 8:22 pm

jijifer wrote:I took off my cover per the suggestion of Scootertrash a while back.

me too.

Cheshire · Post by **Cheshire** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 8:46 pm

That sucks. Thanks for the reminder to check, though.
Glad to hear it was (I'm assuming) relatively minor instead of what you were hoping it wasn't.

Kaos · Post by **Kaos** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:55 pm

Wow, bizarre place for a heat failure. Least you didn't hole the piston or something. chain guides are easy

Lostmycage · Post by **Lostmycage** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:45 pm

All things considered, you lucked out. Like Kaos said, it could have been a lot worse.

SOOoo........ tell us about the Jager

djelliott · Post by **djelliott** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:54 pm

Lostmycage wrote:All things considered, you lucked out. Like Kaos said, it could have been a lot worse.

SOOoo........ tell us about the Jager

Yep. Lucked out indeed. I didn't ride the Yager, but from what Phil and Merritt have said it handles nice. We all agree though that it has a face only a mother could love.

Lostmycage · Post by **Lostmycage** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:26 pm

djelliott wrote:...We all agree though that it has a face only a mother could love.

Or <a href="http://www.headinjurytheater.com/images ... >Atreyu</a>