Bigend Bearings ( Roller Tappet Upgrade )

I finally got off my fat behind and pulled the sump as the last part of the roller upgrade. A pretty thing inside.

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Crank Journal is like new

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Bearings however look a little worse for wear.

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The New and the Old

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A bit hard to see in this pic , these bearing shells are coded "Blue" , a little stripe on the edge off the shell 

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The Blue ones are this Part Number ..........


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The Red ones are this Part Number. 

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The Crankshaft has a colour code on the webs to indicate the bearing size fitted. Mine , obviously was blue, I bought the Red ons just in case .

So , any corrections needed here Pete ?    
As I cut my filters open each service, ( OCD ? ) I never saw anything in the filter contents to indicate the tappets where on the way out . And judging the look of the bearing shells, I would strongly recommend changing the Conrod bearings when any wear is indicated on the cam or tappets.

Fucking Jesus I was hoping this wouldn't be the case.

Arse!

how many miles does it have?

Crikey! This knock on effect is getting a bit scary.

Thanks for the heads up ron. How much wear did you have on the tappets??

Cripes!  The more I see stuff like this, the more I want to reconsider my hunt for a Tenni and just bite the bullet on a new Rosso!

Is there any cause for concern on the main crank bearings and/or wrist pins? I've not rebuilt a motorcycle engine before, and by the looks of it there aren't main bearings with such a short crankshaft aside from the case at either end.

How about the oil pumps themselves? Assuming there are screens on the pickups. Were those clean?

Yes there is concern. The rear is easy but the front main is now pressed into the case and not supposed to be a serviceable item, (It is of course, it's just a lot more complicated to replace.). Little ends? No, they are fed by splash.

Ron? What stage was the wear at on your tappets out of interest?

What I would like to say is that this sort of damage isn't inevitable. While this makes four bikes I know of that have had bearing damage I have also been into the bottom end of several others after tappet failure and they showed absolutely no sign of any contamination at all. One question worth asking of those whose bearings have been damaged is what is your usual start up route? Does it involve a lot of pottering through suburbs at low revs? Or do you get straight on a highway pretty much immediately and start winding it up a bit? Not suggesting flogging the crap out of it but taking it over 3.5/4K? I'm wondering if the damage is evident on machines where the filter is going into bypass when the oil is cold allowing the contaminants through on certain machines.

Pete

Quote :

Or do you get straight on a highway pretty much immediately and start winding it up a bit?

That's me. I'm often hitting 6K in 5th before the engine is over 80 degrees. In colder months, even before 60 degrees.

Total Km's = 36500 ish, Tappets were on the way out but not to the self destruction level. pic of right side , left side was similar.

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I too ride off from cold starts and have often seen the warning light come on the electronic pressure gauge that I set to come on at 90 psi.  It was just an arbitrary figure as I knew they ran around 70 or 80 psi . Mine still runs around 75 to 80 psi depending on the ambient temp. Working on that info I'm happy to leave the main bearings alone.
The forward rod shells ( right cylinder ) were poorer than the rear ones. I have to admit that one one occasion many moons ago , I neglected to prefill the oil filter   , I can't remember hearing any noises at the time but maybe that little oops could have picked up some bearing metal ?
Some scratches on the bearing metal from me measuring.

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I'll dig out some pics for comparison from my motor and Mark S's, I may have some of the shells from RAlf's bike too.

The think they all have in common is the obvious embedment of particles, some quite large, of DLS and also other abrasive damage.

Interesting ly Wayne Orwig's shells, as one other set I'be seen, have lo large particulate damage and on first glance look OK. The thing is if you look carefully at the surface of the bearing it appears to have a, for want of a better description, 'Matt' appearance and examination with a magnifying glass would seem to show that much smaller particulates seem to have been floating around in the delivered oil tracking up the bearings surfaces as the oil flows through but without enough depth to actually embed or score the surface deeply. Its not damage I'm familiar with and will have to look into it more deeply.

Mark. I have unstressed rod bolts and shells. If you want we can do the sump swap before we go to the Flinders and drop the caps at the same time for a looks on your bike and replace shells as necessary.

pete

I think that would ease the niggles.

Do you remember if you have a red or blue crank?

Nope.

No matter.

I can shoot the spare set of red shells down if you want them Pete ? Still untouched by human hands.
Before I refit this engine , what's involved in changing or at least checking the main bearings ? Are these bearings available as spares , I can't find them in the parts listings 

So fresh and so clean.

waterbottle wrote:

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The rear is, the front is integral to the case. It's a pressed in sleeve and not available as a separate part, Grrrrr! Yes you can swap it but it would be an embuggerance, turn up a new bearing, press out the old one and press in and drill and peg the replacement then machine for depth and bore to size accurately. As I said a pain in the arse

It might be worth you pulling the rear main for a looksee. Would you like me to send you up the tool to do so? Remember when you replace the flange NO GASKET just some Threebond.

Pete

PS I have boy size shells on order for Mark's bike along with bolts and have a set of one size already, I just couldn't be arsed going to the workshop to look! I get 'em in from AF1. Samples want $60 a shell! From the US they are ten bux for a blue 'un and fifteen bux for a red 'un. Don't ask me? I only work here!

Boy size shells? What are you inferring?

'Both' can you not extrapolate? Good grief! You can't get good help nowadays!

I can, but I'd rather be facetious.

Pete Roper wrote:

The rear is, the front is integral to the case. It's a pressed in sleeve and not available as a separate part, Grrrrr! Yes you can swap it but it would be an embuggerance, turn up a new bearing, press out the old one and press in and drill and peg the replacement then machine for depth and bore to size accurately. As I said a pain in the arse

It might be worth you pulling the rear main for a looksee. Would you like me to send you up the tool to do so? Remember when you replace the flange NO GASKET just some Threebond.

Pete

PS I have boy size shells on order for Mark's bike along with bolts and have a set of one size already, I just couldn't be arsed going to the workshop to look! I get 'em in from AF1. Samples want $60 a shell! From the US they are ten bux for a blue 'un and fifteen bux for a red 'un. Don't ask me? I only work here!

Yes, I bought my bearings from AF1 at your recommendation. 
Is the Tool for locking the ring gear in place ? If so , I can probably knock one up at work. 
Point taken re the No Gasket on rear flange, just some threebond   A couple of suspect bolt lengths to check for too ?

Locking the ring gear is a piece of piss. Pulling the rear main takes a bridging too that works on the back of the flange and the centre of the crank. Easily makeable but use my one as a model. Sometimes they need to be stronger than the factory offering but if the rods are off you can press the rear main out using a press on the crank nose. Just make sure you catch it as it comes out. It's heavy and if it cants sideways it can score the front main.

Pete

Big thanks to Pete Roper for fixing up my 2009 GRiSO with rollerisation. He counselled me to have it done before I headed off to Tasmania and points various and was able to fit me in at short notice. She had 24,000km on the clock and when Pete and Michael took the heads off sure enough there were signs of wear on the tappets and on the cam lobes.

All was done on the day and she has since done another 5,000km with no probs whatsoever, including a nice little stint at 199km/hr. Well done Pete and Michael. Hopefully Piaggio will do the right thing warranty-wise, but if not then so be it. And hopefully that will be the end of the matter. Cheers again Pete!

I think it is easy to be a little too paranoid about this. Certainly there are obviously some bikes in some circumstances whose engines are going to have issues after tappet failure and rollerisation. The fact remains that the vast majority don't.

It fascinates me and drives me to find out the WHY because then I have a better chance of predicting which ones are going to turn into shitters but while worrying these few failures don't immediately indicate there is an endemic problem.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, is happening in Mark's bike. He runs a 9,000rpm rev limit and hits it fairly often. If there is going to be a severely taxing situation where a hydrodynamic bearing is likely to fail it's way up there. The oil pump will be being asked to work harder than it is usually asked to and if the bearings are in any way compromised it will be then that the wedge will break down and boundary lubrication will occur. So far Mark's bike hasn't made the 'Dogga-Dogga' noise. (Shrug?)

Investigation and analysis will tell the tale. Guesswork and panic? Not so much....

Pete