I was riding home from breakfast with the Guzzi gang on Saturday about 1:30 in the afternoon. I had noticed a new tic tic coming from the engine and made a mental note to check the valves as soon as possible.  I topped the rise above Port Orchard and was headed down the hill towards Gorst at abou 60 MPH when there was a poud bang like an explosion and the rear tire jumped as I ran over something I had not seen in the road.  Instinctively I pulled the clutch and closed the throttle but for some reason the engine seemd to rev higher for a moment then with another clack it went quiet.
I looked down still holding the clutch open. My left boot was covered in oil from the toe to the top, and it is a high top boot.  This is not a good omen I thought as I put on the four way flashers and moved to the shoulder and let the Webley Vickers coast down the hill as far as it could hoping to get past the barrier that would trap me on this freeway.
I coasted to within 100 yards of th end of the barrier and stopped. I took a glance before quickly pushing to where I could actually get off the shoulder and safely away from the 60 to 70 mph traffic rushing past.  What I saw told me that my ride was over, the leak was serious.

The entire front of the engine case on both halves had blown away, taking the counterbalancer unit with it. The leak was about 6 inches high by 6 inches wide. I do not think J.B. weld can do anything for this one.

Phelonius

This is my first post. About an hour ago I bought an 03 Savage with 4,700 on the clock. This is not making me feel good about my new purchase. What do you think happened other than the obvious? Was she low on oil, cam chain broke, etc?

Midnightrider wrote on 08/02/09 at 11:16:00:


Do not worry about your 03 too much.
This disaster was of my own making.  When I put in the larger piston last spring, I noticed that the new piston weighed a bit less than the original.  I tried to balance this by machining a weight to fit inside the wrist pin to make the weight the same as the old one.
I found half of this weight in the wreckage of the engine, indicating that the balancing weight I had constructed had come loose and worked it's way out the end of the wrist pin. It had then fallen onto the flywheel and found it's way to in between the flywheel and the rotating counterbalancer device. The next time the counterbalancer swung around about 3800 RPM, the piece was between it and the flywheel.
Since it couldn't compress, something had to give. The front of the engine was torn away at the bearing housings of the counterbalancer and the balancer and housing chunk were what I felt go under the rear wheel. Two quarts of oil blew out in an instant and it was all over for this engine.  I have to take guilt for an expirement gone wrong.
Do not worry about any unmodified engine. This sort of thing can only happen when a large chunk of metal falls between two moving parts.
Something nearly impossible unless you are as big a fool as me to think you can out engineer the factory.

Phelonius

Oil leak?....  

Phelonius,... You have mastered the art of understatement...

Okay, so, its a leak,nothing to throw a rod over..

Man, Im just glad you didnt get hurt. Sorry for your troubles. You sure handle it well. Im surprised you didnt look to lighten the crank instead of weight the rod. Maybe thats too difficult? Something about dynamic balance?

So sorry about the blow up,but glad you are ok.
Will you offer the piston to the speed god ?
burt Munroe would be proud of you.

Looks like it blew up real good. It is good to hear you got stopped ok . Anything on the bike can be repaired. Another accident would be unthinkable!!!

serenity3743 wrote on 08/04/09 at 09:09:00:
  Serenity, just rode her home while ago. I'm gonna shine on her for a day or 2 and I'll start another thread with pics. I live in Winston Salem not that far away. Maybe we can go for a ride before long. Don't want to steal any more of this thread. Later