Which Way Would You Rebuild it? I Have To Discuss The Rebuild With Owner.

[JerzOutlaw350]

  Hey What’s Up HQ’ers! I have a returning customer with a 98’ Banshee with a completely stock engine that I have worked on in the past. He brought it to me yesterday saying it has a problem with extreme loss of power and shuts off after about an hour of riding. He said if he lets it sit and cool down for about 25 to 30 minutes then restarts it to ride it again the problem comes back about the same time frame. So this is where I come in. I looked it over and I took it for a test ride. It did it to me just ripping it up and down my stone driveway. In no way it’s overheating. I removed the keihin carbs and checked them over and they were clean of any signs of contamination. He runs VP C9 for fuel and Klotz Super Techniplate at 32:1.  I checked the reed and they were good. I switched all the electrical components from a known good running Banshee and nothing changed. The clutch is working properly. The front and rear brakes are working properly nothing hanging up. I did a compression test both cold and at operating temperature. Cylinders at cold was 110 and cylinders at operating temp was 115. Did a leak down test and it sat at 6 psi over night with no pressure loss. No engine noises present. The Banshee runs and rides normally. 

  Now this morning I brought it out and started it up and let it warm up for about 4-5 minutes. Took it out for a rip nearby my house and I got it nice and hot the it did it. Now I noticed with the engine hot it feels like it’s got a ton of compression. So I got it restarted and limped it back to my house and it still feels like it has a ton of compression. I removed the spark plugs and nothing changed. So I drained all the coolant out of the system and removed the cylinder head and cylinders. Pistons and cylinder bores seems to be okay with just a slight sign of normal wear. Probably could just get away with new wrist pin bearings and rings on the pistons if needed. But that plan got blown out the window. When I went to check the crank. That’s where I found the problem. The lower rod bearings feel really crunchy with a small amount of side to side play with more being on the right side. Then when spinning the crank it self the main bearings also have a small amount of crunchy feeling and a small amount drag. I think he was lucky to catch this before it turned into something very catastrophic.  
 

  So I’m going to be giving him an update on my findings today to find out what direction he wants to do moving forward with rebuilding it. I’ll be back with an updated soon. 
 

 

Thanks