[Neeenja32]

A few weeks ago I was riding and my motorcycle started making a horrible rattling noise. sounded like something broke loose and was bouncing around somewhere in the engine.

Removed oil, noticed bronze and metal flakes, but hadn’t changed the filter in awhile and the oil was old.

Took apart clutch to look inside and see if anything was loose or messed up, it looked okay, so I put everything back together, new filter and new oil started it up and had a little rattle at first, but that went away shortly. Let it run for a bit, sounded good.

Thought everything was good until I went for a test ride, immediately in first gear I noticed a drop in power, slow rev which wouldn’t get above 7k rpm, rattle returned..made the block and tried to listen where it was coming from (sounded like the front) before shutting it down.

motor was really hot (way to hot for the little test ride).
Haven’t started it back up yet.
Any thoughts ? Where do I begin?

 

[jjmaine]

There shouldnt be any metal flakes in your oil it doesn’t sound good. IMO running the engine further will only cause more issues and it likely needs to be stripped down and inspected to find and fix the problem. You can find good used engines on ebay for around $1k which would prob be your best bet.

 

[SparkyMJ]

Yeah man you probably lost an important bearing. Stop running it. Unfortunately if you saw a lot of shavings, the damage is done.

Bronze looking metal is particularly from certain bearings too I believe. Loss of power would also indicate that it's either a rod bearing, crank bearing, or piston wrist pin bearing. And you're likely losing power because a piston isn't making proper compression anymore, and so that is what you're feeling in gear when the engine is now engaged to the transmission most likely.

But as you found in the clutch, I don't think that is where your issue lies. It's deeper. You probably ran low on oil, and that's a death sentence. You don't have to have the oil pressure light come on at the dash to be catastrophically low on oil.

I'd say you have two options.

• Pull the engine out and have a learning opportunity, and maybe repair it for probably around 1000 USD depending on the damage, with used a new parts, and if you need machining work, add hundreds more.
• Pull the engine out, and if you determine it's FUBAR, then part it out or sell/trash it and buy a used engine, or a new bike.

Unless you're very ambitious, or want to just learn about why your engine died, your engine is likely trashed. Repairing an engine that had significant metal shavings in it and it's been run damaged has probably suffered other collateral damages.

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news most likely. We'll support you if you decide to rip it open and learn a thing or two. If you're persistent enough, just about anything is possible.

-Mike