Broken Valve & Piston Damage

[ferguscawley]

Bike Fixed !!

Bill and I fixed the bike last Wednesday night. Replaced piston, ground in new valve, set clearances, drained the oil and replaced etc etc. Bike started first attempt (after we anally checked valve timing over and over again manually !!). Runs really smooth now - better than it ever did actually.

I have attached some pictures to show what we found.
When draining the engine oil, we heard the sound of something metallic hitting the oil basin. We dredged through the oil and found a cylindrical pellet of aluminium which was driven out of the piston crown by the exhaust valve stem. No other swarf or shavings were found in the used oil.

 

[ferguscawley]

Here are the broken bits - valve body and stem and pellet from the piston crown

 

[Alte Wolf]

Here are the broken bits - valve body and stem and pellet from the piston crown

Impressive and descriptive write up Ferg and good photos . Hope all is well for you now

 

[andy malton]

pellet

Bloody ell Ferg,you was being looked down on from up above,that sort of luck don't come often.Have you put the pellet back in the hole to see if anymore is missing!!.Looks a pretty clean hole to me.Andy

 

[ferguscawley]

Andy

Pellet fits perfectly . Nothing else missing - thank God

See below.......

 

[carbold]

Hi Ferg
good job and nice pics. The Italian brothers on www.quellidellelica.it are watching this thread. Quite worrying actually...Was wondering, what was the mileage?

 

[ferguscawley]

Mileage is just over 50K miles.
Bike in good conditon - oil changed v regularly. Bike is ridden hard all the time - never gave an ounce of trouble before now. Hopefully, thats the end of it all