SuzukiSavage.com - Print Page

SuzukiSavage.com
/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl
General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> engine trouble
/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1334874397

Message started by car7083 on 04/19/12 at 15:26:37

Title: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/19/12 at 15:26:37

ok i just got my first bike a 1987 savage, i just bought in monday and did a little work to it to get it street worthy, yesterday i took my first ride for about 4 hours and it ran great until i was on the way home i was cruizing in 4th gear doing about 40 mph or so, and all of a sudden i heard what allmost sounded like a pop or ping (similar to detonation, but i dont think this was the problem seeing as i was using 93 octane) i heard this about 3 or 4 times, came up to a stop light and pulled in the clutch and it just died, after getting off the road i couldnt get it running again, it still turns over but sounds like a loss of compression maybe? i am thinking maybe the timing chain jumped and i bent a valve, as i said before this is my first bike and i am just wondering if anyone else has has this problem? any information is appreciated, thanks

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by verslagen1 on 04/19/12 at 16:14:19

I think you ran out of gas, put it in reserve. ;D

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Serowbot on 04/19/12 at 16:59:38

That always works when I run out... :-?...

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Oldfeller on 04/19/12 at 17:37:52

Serro, let Verslagen handle this one

--- it will be fun to watch him tell the dude to put it in prime without telling him it is because his vac petcock system's done gone bad.

(yeah, and them spring covered hoses DO count as part of the vac petcock overall system architecture)

Routy will then have to chime in to help, too. Routy will have him tearing the carb bowl off to get the durn spider off the main jet (them durn spider push ups again).

It will be fun to see how far they can go before somebody finally has to say the R word to the young man.

;D ;D ;D

Test your Petcock,.. don't just turn it to Prime.. (http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1251932429/1)

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/19/12 at 18:12:27

it didnt run out of gas, i know it was not the petcock or the carb, i had the carb rebuilt tuesday, and the stock petcock is allways "on" and i just added a fuel cutoff and filter between it and the carb, there was plenty of fuel in the fuel filter, im fairly certian it is a mechanical problem, i have read that the timing chain tensioner or somthing wears out on these bikes, mine has 12k miles but everything i have read says they do not usually go out til around 30k miles

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 04/19/12 at 18:15:54

but everything i have read says they do not usually go out til around 30k miles

No, thats when theyd otta give out,, they usually take a dump between 12 & 17 thou now.

How long did it set up before you got it?

How many miles on it?

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Serowbot on 04/19/12 at 18:21:01

Breakdowns always feel so serious,.. but are most often simple...

Check the easy stuff first...
If you're sure it ain't fuel,.. check the sidestand and clutch lever cutouts... if they get dirty or corroded, it'll shut you down just like you describe...
Disconnect, clean, and reconnect them...
Keep fingers crossed, but do this before you go digging deep... ;)...

Yup, check the kill switch on the handlebars too. And the position of the ignition switch -- we got a "parking lights only" position that I remember finding one time when the bike was new to me.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by vineman on 04/19/12 at 19:06:43

I can contest to being the victim of problems that have really easy fixes and I always jump the gun and go big on the repair when it was really just a fuse o or something like that all along. (Had a mini cooper that kept overheating when standing still so i spent $100 at the local BMWship for them to tell me it was a $1.40 fuse, not my proudest moment)

Listen to serow, start small and get bigger if needed.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Oldfeller on 04/19/12 at 19:28:40

6D6F7C393E363D0E0 wrote:

it didnt run out of gas, i know it was not the petcock or the carb, i had the carb rebuilt tuesday, and the stock petcock is allways "on" (he has a stock petcock) and i just added a fuel cutoff and filter between it and the carb, there was plenty of fuel in the fuel filter, im fairly certian it is a mechanical problem, i have read that the timing chain tensioner or somthing wears out on these bikes, mine has 12k miles but everything i have read says they do not usually go out til around 30k miles

Here is what a gone cam chain tensioner sounds like .... (note the bike still runs when the cam chain tensioner goes ... it doesn't die like it is out of gas)

here is the thread, got us lots of examples of running dead cam chain tensioner bikes ...... http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1308708632

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSKo7qQH3hE[/media]

You need to listen to what folks are saying -- your bike stopped and won't start. That is gas or electrical. Check them switches and key positions and side stand switches.

Take your air filter out of the hole and spray ether (staring fluid) into the air box, turn the ignition to the proper "on" and hit the starter with a fully charged battery.

Why fully charged? Because a partial charge on the battery (less than 10 volts when cranking) will spin the motor but the black box won't fire the plug if the voltage drops below 10 volts while cranking. It is a little quirk Suzuki black boxes are known for ....

Charge your battery. Shoot the ether. Turn the bike "on". Crank the bike. If it even tries to start, you got gas supply issues.

If it doesn't try to start, you got spark issues.

You had the carb rebuilt last Tuesday. hmmmmm ..... this may be a Mikey issue.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/20/12 at 07:40:38

thanks guys, i wasnt aware that it would still run with the tensioner broke, yeah this is my first bike, but ive been a car guy all my life and it just worried me about the noise i heard, it didnt sound pretty lol, thats why i assumed it was somthing internal, and yeah i got the stock petcock, lol, the diaphram was messed up and the local bike shop wanted 100 bucks for a replacement so i just opted for the cheap route it cost about 6 dollars just to add my own cutoff and i put a filter on, reserve still works and everything, oh and I am not sure how long it had sat before i got it, i would have to say at least a year or 2

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Oldfeller on 04/20/12 at 08:18:06

Ah, we get closer to the real cases now.

You are intentionally using a known bad vac petcock but have added an exterior manual cut off to the system for $6.

Hey, perhaps your known defective petcock has SOME OTHER (unknown to you) symptoms that only exist while the bike is running (or not running as the case may be) that it can still do to you while you are still trusting it to run your bike in the ON position?

Did you even read the thread we gave you earlier? It has a listing of symptoms in it that runs like this. Anything sound familiar?

1) Your bike stumbles or acts like it is running out of gas when you are going over 55 mph and then when you get to the pump you can't put in 2 full gallons of gasoline.

2) Your bike dies on you and you play bloody hell getting it to start again (you can't get any gas from your sick vac petcock no matter what you do to try to get it to start).

3) When you get a reserve situation and roll the vac petcock toggle to Reserve, the bike continues to stumble for nearly a minute before slowly picking up some power and speed as you struggle to get to a gas station.

4) You get all sorts of abrupt indications your carburetor is dirty or your jetting suddenly went off (and you haven't changed your exhaust system or air filter system). Especially applies if SeaFoam, etc has NO EFFECT on your "carburetor issues" whatsoever when you try it.

5) You smell gasoline either coming from your vac suction line, your airbox or from your oil fill port when you unscrew it (so you can sniff your oil in the sump for the scent of gasoline) because you suspect you have one of the above going on.

If any of them fit, you may want to go back up and read the entire thread very carefully and do the things listed in it. The link is at the bottom of reply #3 above.

Also note the comments about using the big screwdriver handle to jar your float assembly free from getting stuck at the ends of its travel.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/20/12 at 14:15:39

none of the above, sorry, ....i can literally watch the fuel come down the line and into the filter, and the filter is about 3 inches away from the carb, i had someone else more familiar with bikes take a look today it still turns over but it turns over too easy, we are pretty sure there is a loss of compression, especially considering the noises i heard, im assuming a bent valve :'(

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by teabowl13 on 04/20/12 at 14:28:30

I'm pretty much a newbie to these bikes too, and I've never heard of this in all of my reading here on tis forum, so take this with a grain of salt, but it just popped into my head...

These bikes have an automatic compression release system; powered by a solenoid under the tank. Is it possible this has somehow failed, and is holding the compression release open? That would give a loss of compression, but it seems far fetched to me; I imagine if that failed it would stay closed, not open.

That said, I think you'd have to do something pretty drastic to this engine to bend a valve. None of the rest of what you have described points to anything that catastrophic... I say keep looking for something simple....

Just because you can see the fuel coming down the tube and running into your carburetor, doesn't mean that it's getting into the engine.

The fact that you "Just had the Carb rebuilt" to me is actually a sure sign that you should look there first. The last part that you "Fixed" is often the source of your new problem. Was the bike running normally before the carb was worked on? Who did the work? It's very possible that something wasn't done quite right, and now the newly re-built carb isn't really working right. I would check there...

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 04/20/12 at 14:38:29

REmove left side head cover & see what the decomp lever is doing.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Savage_Rob on 04/20/12 at 14:41:17

5A6B6F6C6179623F3D0E0 wrote:

The fact that you "Just had the Carb rebuilt" to me is actually a sure sign that you should look there first. The last part that you "Fixed" is often the source of your new problem. Was the bike running normally before the carb was worked on? Who did the work? It's very possible that something wasn't done quite right, and now the newly re-built carb isn't really working right. I would check there...

+1

6F7076716C6B5A6A5A62707C37050 wrote:

REmove left side head cover & see what the decomp lever is doing.

Also an interesting direction, provided the item just "fixed" isn't at issue.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by verslagen1 on 04/20/12 at 15:34:13

55574401060E05360 wrote:

well if we are there... then take of the inspection covers and turn the crank by hand. You can also get a good look at the valves by removing the header and carb.

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Oldfeller on 04/20/12 at 21:28:26

Let's see, the bike was bought on Monday, took it in Mon-Tues and got a $100 dealer quote to fix the petcock, the carb was rebuilt on Tuesday and petcock is currently being run in ON position (hey, he knows its a bad vac petcock -- was told so by the dealership) and he has now added a manual shut off valve that was added oh, lets say on Tues-Wed because his first post was on Thursday. None of the carb rebuilds or shutoff things done so far will stop the bad vac petcock in the ON position from supplying insufficent gasoline and choking off the bike while it is running down the road.

No mention has been made of whacking the float bowl with the big screw driver handle in order to jar loose a float assembly that might have gotten stuck when the bike ran out of gas due to bad vac petcock starvation, so this hasn't been tried yet.

Now "somebody familiar with bikes" has looked at it and "it turns over too easy" so first it was the cam chain tensioner, now it is bent valves.

(I'm keeping a map of where we have been so far -- I do love these little magical mystery tours I do ...)

Note that he still hasn't done anything we have suggested yet, nor touched a wrench to hand in pursuit of anything said here.

(A compression check would be nice around now, with like some numerical results)

Energizing the solenoid while the bike was running down the road would make a single pop sound (solenoid thunking) and valves would be held open for <1 second while the pop sound was being heard.

Solenoid mechanism jamming open is a possibility but has not happened before, so it might be unlikely but it is possible. Solenoid mechanism lifts one exhaust valve about 1/6" but the cam opens it a whole lot further. The two are not additive, the cam is the big mover, not the solenoid.

Hitting the valves with a stock piston simply isn't going to happen. Floating the valves repeatedly at very high rpms with a stock piston with even a Stage 2 high lift/duration cam does not result in any valve/piston contact (and does no damage either).

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/20/12 at 23:49:30

ok if all you got is smartass comments then you can stop posting, thank you

and @ teabowl13, yes i have also though of the compression release, just have been too busy at work to get it in the garage, hopefully ill have time soon, gonna try the easy stuff first, so hopefully all goes well

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/22/12 at 15:43:14

well i had some time off today so i did a compression check on the bike and it barely registered on the guage, so i dug in, found that somone took the engine apart before and must have forgotten to put the ring on the wrist pin :( ... so to make a long story short does anyone know if a 1997 cylynder and piston will work on my 1987? its the only one i can find on ebay at the moment, still looking though

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by verslagen1 on 04/22/12 at 15:55:02

Yes, they will ;D

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by ralfyguy on 04/22/12 at 18:57:21

56544702050D06350 wrote:

You sure it ain't the stock petcork? ;D ;D ;D

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/23/12 at 10:28:16

is there any difference between the cylinders that i would have to modify or anything? is there any differende between an 87 and 97? i have been all over this and other sites trying to find out, i would just like to know for sure that it will work before i purchase, any help is appreciated

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by Oldfeller on 04/23/12 at 10:48:18

273423223D3036343F60510 wrote:

Yes, they will ;D

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by verslagen1 on 04/23/12 at 11:13:24

not a thing go for it

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/23/12 at 11:14:26

ok, guess ill go ahead and get it, thanks

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by car7083 on 04/23/12 at 11:28:36

ok then well i went to ebay and its gone now so are there any other sites where i could find a used cylinder? there arent any bike salvage yards around me and now im not sure where to look

Title: Re: engine trouble
Post by splash07 on 04/23/12 at 12:08:37

try a post in the market place.