Okay, I was heading home from work last night when the FireLizard suddenly died, I tried to crank it back up and heard an awful grinding noise, somehow though I managed to fire it back up anyway and rode home.

Well, I just took the case apart and found this. I am very surprised I made it home at all last night.





As you can see, one of the springs is in the crank gear and the other spring was found in the cover, and the tensioner is all the way out and seperated.

Did you buy it new? Used? MIleage when purchsed? Did you have any reason to believe the bike was abused?
How do you ride? How many miles on it now? Any clues before it "all literally went to pieces"?

Total destruction in just 14,000 miles. Another data point.

I wonder if Suzuki is even aware of this?

Ken

Yep on rings and hone etc, but dont forget to do a 3 angle valve job on the valves and seats.
If the cam chain has cut a trench in the case, make sure you fill with weld and get the thing ground smooth and flush and oil up and what not before you start it.
Mine was the same way, dont worry, it will live again.
Cool.
Srinath.

Very true, and I will be doing the work myself, I just have to save up the money to get the parts. Until then, my wife will be driving me back and forth to work.

Strafford_Guy wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:07:


Let me see if I can think of anything that would have been tell tale.

I was idling crappy, it would go up and down and almost die. Had to keep some throttle open to keep it idling. Was starting to make some noise in the crankcase, like the chain was loose and slapping around, chugging when I tried to accelerate almost as if I were running low on fuel. (had a full tank so I know I wasn't low on gas, and petc0ck and all lines are good).

When I shutdown the engine it was make a mechanical sounding pop, like to pieces of metal hitting each other. This also came from the right side of the crankcase where the camchain is located.  

I guess with all of these clues I should have something was up, but like I said in an earlier post, I have also been fouling out plugs left and right so I thought my jetting was too rich. Now I'm not so sure, it could have been that the valves were opening wrong because of loose camchain and letting in more fuel at wrong times.

Thats pretty much all I can think of at the moment that if I were paying attention I should have known what was up. But live and learn from the experiance I reckon. Then pass on the knowledge so nobody else winds up in the same situation.

Anything to help. I do believe that is why this board was created, not just to chat with other Savage/S40 owners but to share ideas such.

The chain is continuous, so to cut it you'd have to have a replacement pin and know how to set it in place.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.  This is why I put a pin and slot in mine.  Those noises eminating from the right side are your only clue.  The other symptoms maybe not related or may not occur every time.  At least I didn't notice them.  

I've seen some wear patterns that indicate just before it lets go, the adjuster and guide flop around quite a bit.  Enough to create a 1/2" arc on the back side of the adjuster.