Some tweaks:

Just two hundred or so local, thrashed miles in a month and not too much has fallen off. I've been busy making a few mods though:

Clip Ons

They were just too 'clip on' for my aged bod. Even to the extent that I had to alter a set of leathers so's I could actually look up enough to see the road ahead. They worked well enough when the sap had risen and I was slinging the thing around, but slower speeds were too painful a reminder of my age and inflexibility. So here's a pair of snazzy, super-adjustable things, they're mainly flatter than true 7 degree inclined clip ons so my hands are thankfully an inch or two higher:



Speedo sender

Turns out that my scheme to replace the OE sender with a super-affordable chinese NPN inductive proximity switch, failed. It worked well enough coupled directly to the oohbay instruments of doom (many threads refer) but it seems that its maximum response rate of 500Hz (chinese Hertz) equated to a rest-of-the-world rate of around 250Hz, above which it sort of went a bit funny. This equated to around 90mph, at which point the speedometer spat its dummy out. The scientific explanation for this is simple: chinese seconds are twice as long as everyone else's seconds, that's why they can be so darn productive. The solution was a very bulky, super ugly looking, Telemechanique sensor, which costs around the same as a second hand OE sensor. No progress there then.


A bit of livery

As a blue entity, the thing was very plain. So I incorporated some stick-on reading material:



And here's a contribution from Stan The Man, arrived today from Australia, delivered by the Qween of Engerland no less (well it was her picture on the stamp):


And this chap goes everywhere with me:


Lastly, turns out that she is a bit of a dirty girl. I'd blame wear in the bores, but the compression test showed no issues there, so who knows? Anyways, a oil catch can was called for.



The spigot on the front end of the catch can is for draining the thing off when it's on the side stand.
Now, all I need to do is find some environmentally conscious means of disposing of that nasty, dirty, anti-social, polluting stuff that comes out.


Oh wait!
.........I've had an idea! 

Some tweaks #2

A hugger:



No fan fitted to this machine, and it's got the narrow K75s radiator, and it seems to get thrashed, so a temp gauge eases my conscience:


And a bit of silver paint (still trying to copy those lines of a RC30) - any spot-the-difference experts can see where?

Engine seized!

I suppose it was inevitable really, given the poor condition (it had been wrongly assembled/seized by a PO) that it was in - that and the fact that Eeyore here ran it for twenty minutes without oil. 
It happened whilst out for a run, a few red line overtakes and then for a mile or so it seemed as though it might have lost a bit of mid-range pull. Slowing for a roundabout in traffic I remember noticing that the primary drive whistle seemed extra 'whistley' and was almost louder than the exhaust. As I pulled the clutch in to coast to a stop the engine just died. Attempts to restart it identified that the starter wouldn't turn the engine, neither would a fifth gear bump. Got it back home and the engine is very tight to turn - something in there has tightened up.

So, I've just got back from a five day trip up to Scottish Scotland (two up on a R1200CL of all things - five days of riding without a power curve, hmmm) and been thinking about what I'm likely to find when I take it to bits.....?

My money's on buggered main bearings. The barrels are nikasil and it's very difficult to destroy that stuff. You still might have got away without significant amounts of damage, Chris.

Nothing to see here, move along folks:



Turns out the bottom end, top end, middle end (?) are all fine. It's the alternator drive shaft that is very tight to turn. I suspect cack-handed workmanship on my part - I remember it tightened up when I assembled the alternator drive flange onto the end of the shaft. So I took it back apart and shuffled the components, yep, skilful huh? Sooooo, yet again, it looks like I am The Weakest Link.

Haven't yet stripped the bellhousing off the block, so all will be revealed tomorrow.

Good guess Dai (that was what I was expecting too) but you didn't allow for dozy workmanship.

Good news is that, despite twenty minutes of oil-deprived torture, the big ends and mains look perfect - better then I remember them when I first rebuilt it.

Someone, somewhere, a long time ago and far, far from here, ran a Honda CB250N Superdream on full throttle with no oil....

... it lasted almost three hours before finally giving up. But we did stupid things back in the 'Brits are Best' days. Aaand - so much for Brits are Best.

oh  crap ,  remember finding the sprag clutch sitting a little deeper into the block than it should have been , fingers crossed its just the output bearing to the alternator...?

I think I follow you Charlie - the alternator drive flange retaining bolt was loose when I found it, and the fact that the drive flange splines hardly seem to locate on the splined rear end of the sprag clutch assembly leads me to suspect that: the bolt wasn't tightened properly on assembly, and the whole sprag clutch assembly has somehow moved forwards and jammed in its location between the bellhousing and the engine block.

We'll see later 

...and just like Dai's CB250 'experiment', I had a GS500 commuter (12 miles of motorway, pinned throttle, twice a day) with an oil leak that I got tired of topping up. When the engine finally exploded I got it back home and set about draining the 'oil' out - which amounted to 2 or 3 teaspoons of sump treacle, nothing else. Okay, one of the rods was still lying somewhere in the fast lane of the M1, but the top - cams and followers, were absolutely unmarked. Stunning durability.

With a lucky SAVE like that,pop into the Betting Shop with a shirt or two

Lucky? That's not even a fraction of it!

Well it was a tight-to-turn alternator drive shaft/sprag clutch at the heart of things. Turns out that this rained a plague of locusts on the big end shell fitted to the end main bearing cap - exactly where the thrust would be from the crank journal as it tried to turn the alternator drive shaft under heavy resistance.  Here's a pic (new bearing shell already installed) The rest of the shells were A1, so it was just that one that suffered heavy wear.

I guess that this extra load on the drive gear was responsible for the extra loud whistling that I thought I could hear, just prior to it seizing.

Anyway, I'm fairly sure that a loose alternator drive flange bolt must have been the initial problem. I can imagine myself assembling the alternator drive shaft/sprag clutch and starter idler gear into the bellhousing on assembly and, like you do, struggling to tighten the bolt at that stage so I can see myself leaving that tricky job until the crank was back in and forgetting to do it.

So, there you are, riding the range with a loose alternator drive flange. What can happen next? Well, if you are unlucky, the sprag clutch driven gear/inner can work its way out of the housing causing the whole assembly to widen and jam itself in the gap between bellhousing and engine block - this can then jam the sprag clutch and the whole thing can tighten itself up like a....thing that's designed to tighten itself up in a small gap. These pics show what I mean:



The second pic shows the sprag clutch driven gear/inner withdrawn slightly from the housing, and if you turn it the correct way to lock it, it's impossible to then push it fully back together. This is what I think happened.

So the whole fix amounted to one bearing shell, and remembering to tighten that bloody bolt. Not something I'll forget in future. A lucky result.

chris , just a heads up 

check the bearing into the block , at the engine end of the sprag clutch

Cheers Charlie - what's the possible problem with the bearing? Everything freed up nicely when I reinstalled the alternator drive flange and tightened the bolt up - it drew the sprag clutch splined shaft rearwards by about 5mm to its correct (I guess) location.
It is possible that I missed a spacer out on reassembly, which allowed this endfloat - that and the loose flange bolt.
It'll be a pain to strip the bellhousing off, or do you think that what's happened points to bearing failure?

Much appreciated
chris

it should look like this 



similar happened to me , resulting in a mashed bearing running surface 

I see your concern. Today the bike was only half an hour from running, so I carried on and started it. Still got the extra loud whistle, but after a minute or so there was a clear bearing rumble-cum-knocking on the overrun, coming from the alternator drive area.
Didn't see any metal flakes/filings on stripdown, but it does now seem like there's something amiss with either or both of the alternator drive shaft bearings.
It'll all be completely apart tomorrow. Did you manage to salvage that engine block? - maybe the condition of that face isn't too important because end float in both directions is controlled by the alternator drive flange bolt clamping the shaft to the rear (deep row?) ball race - the front is a needle roller, which does provide end float amongst other things.

exchanged engine blocks , yes its horrible to consider but had to be done ...if nothing else but piece of mind 

i could have got a running bush and bearing engineered into to the block ,  but that didnt seem to be the first option available around these parts , at the moment

Well Charlie old son, I think you’re my bad luck fairy on this one (that and my reluctance to properly tighten important bolts )
I’d post a picture, but it’d just be a duplicate of the pic of your mashed engine block. The remains of the needle roller bearing were welded to the alternator drive shaft, and some of the engine block had welded itself to the bearing, quite a mess.
I’m taking a different route though, I’ll fit a new bearing in the remains of the bore, with plenty of bearing fit and crossed fingers. I’ve nicked a sprag clutch from a spare engine too so I’ll see how (long) it runs, and what sort of funny noises it might make. Meanwhile I’ll sort out the spare engine...
Cheers (ish) for the help

Geez, between you and Dai, I'm almost afraid to even go out to the garage for fear of causing massive harm to my bikes.

chris846 wrote:Well Charlie old son, I think you’re my bad luck fairy on this one (that and my reluctance to properly tighten important bolts )
I’d post a picture, but it’d just be a duplicate of the pic of your mashed engine block. The remains of the needle roller bearing were welded to the alternator drive shaft, and some of the engine block had welded itself to the bearing, quite a mess.
I’m taking a different route though, I’ll fit a new bearing in the remains of the bore, with plenty of bearing fit and crossed fingers. I’ve nicked a sprag clutch from a spare engine too so I’ll see how (long) it runs, and what sort of funny noises it might make. Meanwhile I’ll sort out the spare engine...
Cheers (ish) for the help

well it was just a heads up chris , was really hoping that it hadnt happened to you 

but just better to check before going too far eh ?

something like this ?



good luck mate '

Yes , very similar but there was no scoring on the edge of the gear as in your pic. The journal on the shaft was ruined though, so the alternator drive shaft was scrap.

I did some measuring and it seems that the bore in the engine block is around 3.5mm deeper than the needle roller bearing, which is supposed to sit flush with the top of the bore - I was able to check this on a spare engine. The needle roller should be HK1616 (16mm bore, 16mm length) but I tried using the next size up: HK1622 (16mm bore, 22mm length) which would allow me to drive the new bearing fully to the bottom of the bore in the engine block, which was a fixit means of overcoming the way that the bore had worn bellmouthed with the damage. The longer bearing still doesn't obscure the oil port at the bottom of the bore BTW.

Here's the two bearings for comparison:


It's hard to see from the next pic, because the bore was so badly damaged and material was worn away or melted and displaced from the machined surface, but the super-long bearing now protrudes about 2.5mm from where the face used to be.


Soooo, I turned back the front face of the alternator drive shaft, to clear this protrusion. The bottom one in the pic. is the modified one.

It's a fix that's all. I was loth to scrap a block, especially as a result of my own slackness, and it really doesn't matter if it doesn't last too long because this bike is only for playtime - it's too dang uncomfortable (for me anyway) to ride too far from home. It'll be interesting to see if it endures though, and I am fairly hopeful - the new bearing felt a good fit as it drove into the bore.

You do know what a bodger is, don't you?

Listen, I quite enjoyed it when I broke down. It was at a place called Ackworth Moor Top (it could only be in Yorkshire with a name like that!) I parked the bike in a little garden next to the war memorial (lest I forgot) and found a nice wooden bench to sit on as I watched the world go by. Lots of people stopped to chat, those who 'admired' the bike were soon put right by yours truly. I had a couple of offers of help and spoke to several dog owners. Time slid by. Some of the people sat outside the pub opposite showed half an interest in my half-hearted spannering. Back to the bench, summer evening, eyes closing...then my lift arrived.

Based on that, I might even get a British bike 

chris846 wrote:Listen, I quite enjoyed it when I broke down. It was at a place called Ackworth Moor Top (it could only be in Yorkshire with a name like that!) I parked the bike in a little garden next to the war memorial (lest I forgot) and found a nice wooden bench to sit on as I watched the world go by. . . .

It sounds delightful.

Steady now lad, it were Yorkshire!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.6404551,-1.336235,3a,75y,264.24h,80.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skAYDxEGmiVpr2HqIS0gZ0A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

"You do know what a bodger is, don't you? "


At least I've never set fire to one of my bikes.

Erm, actually, that's not completely true....







(I've set fire to two of my bikes)

chris846 wrote:Steady now lad, it were Yorkshire!

My distant relatives visited Yorkshire occasionally until the Bishop of Glasgow forever-cursed the whole family. Uncle Johnny still was invited to the court of James V though, but didn't come home. I thought I was doomed until Max BMW started offering to ship parts for free, so it hasn't been too bad, narrowly speaking.

chris846 wrote:Steady now lad, it were Yorkshire!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.6404551,-1.336235,3a,75y,264.24h,80.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skAYDxEGmiVpr2HqIS0gZ0A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

How thoughtful that the city fathers would rope off the wooden bench, reserving it for your use...

chris846 wrote:And Yorkshire was a bit far from the borders, and certainly had nothing worth 'reiving', apart from a bit of coal.

Maybe it was their equivalent to a Disney World Resort vacation. They're too far distant for inquiries.