Hobgoblin Rally 2010 (Not all quite as planned.....)

A report to be proud of, are you sure its your first time??
Excellent.
 
Doesn't time fly by 8 yrs...
 
Right then...Sunday afternoon and I`m home about 4pm.

It was still a nice dry day so as soon as I was unpacked and my clothes washing lobbed into the machine I decided to start checking Skaya over.

I`d been pondering the nature of the initial 'chirrupy' sounds she`d made when riding to Glambabe`s on Friday...and also how the engine stalled then was reluctant to turn over.
Like I`d said earlier,the reluctance to turn over on the starter motor was just like having a flat battery...but the battery was good.

So that suggested a physical loading.....some sort of restriction.

And when Skaya was being ridden,despite the varying sounds,there was no undue vibration through the footpegs suggesting big end or main bearing problems.
There was no top end noise either.

In fact all the noises were from directly below the petrol tank......and that`s where the alternator is.

So,I was fairly convinced that there had been a repeat of the incident I mentioned where the alternator drive key had worn out,and worn the keyway out too.
This had led to the splitpin failing on the alternator drive gear securing nut and somehow or other the nut had unwound against the direction of drive and worn into the rearmost interior face of the timing casing.

Having established this 'cause and effect' theory,I removed Skaya`s alternator.

This is a doddle of a job.
Disconnect main earth wire at speedo cable securing bolt on gearbox.
Undo clips and remove left and right inlet hoses from between airbox and carbs.
Remove the two securing bolts either side of the front of the petrol tank.
Lift rear of tank off the rear frame rubber mounts.....and while keeping all fuel lines still connected,prop tank slightly higher up than normal against the top of the rear mounts.
This gives clearance to remove the top mounting bolt for the airbox.... slide it out to the left while depressing kickstarter to allow side clearance.
Unplug two alternator field excitation and charge lamp wires and remove one 10mm nut to remove the ring connector mounted alternator output wire .
Undo and remove the two 17mm nuts securing the alternator to the crankcase studs.....and slide alternator out.

Once the alternaor was removed and in my sweaty palm,I could see straight away what had happened !!!!

Skayasnag2Medium.jpg


Can you spot it ??

Yup...exactly as I`d suspected.... the securing nut had backed off again !!!
Somehow the splitpin had failed again and the nut had backed right off and chewed into the timing case again.

Skayasnag2Medium.jpg



The castellated end of the nut appeared to have made an excellent hole saw !!

Skayasnag3Medium.jpg


SkayasnagMedium.jpg


The nut had done a right good job on the rear face of the timing chest.

SkayaSnag001Medium.jpg


SkayaSnag002Medium.jpg


Mindful of the fact that a fair bit of metal had been eroded...even though it was soft alloy...I thought it prudent to remove the oil filter and check the housing for swarf.
The filter was actually clean and recent so it was okay to just rinse and reuse.
But while the filter was off its spigot,a fair bit of swarf and metal flakes could be seen at the bottom.

SkayaSnag007Medium.jpg


Hmmmm...don`t want this swimming around my engine.

SkayaSnag008Medium.jpg


And because of this,I decided to remove the sump too.

After the first splitpin failure,the end loop of the failed pin,and the mangled remains of one of the legs,were found in the sump !

This time was yet another repeat.....here`s part of the second failed splitpin.

SkayaSnag005Medium.jpg


I love how the Russians have even cast the Ural logo on the inside face of the sump plate!

SkayaSnag006Medium.jpg


I wiped out and sprayed clean the inside of the sump,and then replaced it along with the oil filter and refilled Skaya with fresh top quality supermarket mineral 20W50 (For those who like to ask :D :augie ).

On inspecting the alternator,this time there was no wear on the shaft key or the keyway.
All that had happened was the failure of the splitpin.

Jamie reckons that this happened when the adaptor stubshaft of the hybrid unit finally achieved full tightness due to rotation under load and this sheared the pin......the theory being that centrifugal force combined with the effect of the field magnets could tighten it all more than we could by hand.

I tend to agree with his theory.

I still can`t get my head around how the nut unwound against the direction of rotation but Jamie reckons vibration may have done it.

Seeing as everything was okay,it was decided to just clean the shaft thread and not bother with a splitpin this time.
After liberal application of industrial Threadlock, a Nyloc nut was wound down nice and tight...and a hot air gun applied carefully,as this sets the Threadlock like an epoxy.

Here it is all nice and tight,and all set.

The small green blob is an amount of Threadlock that seeped out...it really was hard as epoxy.
SkayaSnag004Medium.jpg


I rebuilt Skaya last night and she started straight away...and she sounded sweeter than ever.
No chirrupy sounds,no graunching,no knocking.
So with the with the Nyloc nut combined with the Threadlock let`s see how this 'Mk2 Version' works out,eh ??


I hope this Rally Report combined with a quad review and a Ural workshop session was of some interest or some entertainment to you.

Thanks for reading !

Doesn't time fly by 8 yrs...

Thanks for bumping this, I enjoyed it.
 
That GL1000 Goldwing looks like my old bike. If it is it’s an American import with high handle bars. It was originally brown but I had it sprayed the nice blue in the picture - not an original Honda colour, that’s what makes me think it was mine.

I owned it from 1988 to 1987 and clocked up 110K miles. It was still running when I sold it but was very tatty. The guy I sold it to said he was going to restore it - I hope so.
 


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