A bad night in my garage.

[JasonfromMN]

So I just sent out my shock Friday night to have a little compression removed to complete my bike in the quest of perfection.

Tonight as my bike sits on the stand shock less, thought I'd continue my prep for the next race coming up and change the oil. It started with wanting to start it, warm the oil and drain it. I turned the key, pushed the button and; spin and clunk to a halt. Like something jamed. Dang, gotta drain the oil to get the slide covers off and see what's jamed. Removed the drain bolt and nearly all my coolant drained out followed by a little bit of milky oil. After the last race it ran perfect, didn't smoke or anything all the way to shutting it off before loading up. The clunk Tonight was from hydro locking.


So I started to prep to remove the motor tonight and see what the dammage will entail. So what do ya think, major rebuild or a small freshen up? At least my last race Went well.

Last race

Pic someone took.

Tonight

Xlite husky down!

 

[ghte]

I would just clean out the stator, change the oil, maybe flush it with 2 oil changes, make sure the stator cover is sealed and see how she goes before commencing a major strip down.

 

[columbia510]

I would pull the valve cover off and check the clearances of the valves.

 

[water racer]

Coolant in the oil. Head gasket? Water pump seal? I am mostly a 2 stroke guy so not to familiar with the 4t, but I do have a x-lite. Can't just change the oil, have to figure out how the coolant got in.

 

[ray_ray]

Coolant in the oil. Head gasket? Water pump seal? I am mostly a 2 stroke guy so not to familiar with the 4t, but I do have a x-lite. Can't just change the oil, have to figure out how the coolant got in.

If the bike is running OK, no excessive smoking or missing , ETC... Water pump seal could be the issue ...

 

[Aaron8]

Sorry to hear Jason- Thanks for posting and please keep us updated

 

[JasonfromMN]

I figure it's the water pump seal or the head gasket. At this point I will take it apart lightly to check thoes. Once I get the head off and if the piston and cylinder look ok as I kinda expect they should, I will replace the needed part and flush the system with several oil changes. If they don't, itll probably need a complete rebuild and I don't think that will happen this season. Too bad it ran so perfect and never gave a sign this happened when I shut it down.

 

[water racer]

I think I would explore the water pump before you take the rest of it apart. I doubt anything mechanically is wrong.

 

[Suputin]

The early Aprilia SXV's had a similar problem. They would leak coolant into the crank case. The bigger problem is that water gets into the main crank bearings and thats all she wrote. Major rebuild time.

 

[ray_ray]

I think I would explore the water pump before you take the rest of it apart. I doubt anything mechanically is wrong.

Yep, just fill the radiator back up with water, change the oil with some cheap stuff as what ever you put in is is gonna be ruined ... Start the bike and look for smoke or another signs of engine failure ... If the head gasket is blown, you'll know it ...

Also, maybe look into the radiator ... you should see the water circulating as normal but no bubbling ...

If it is a pump seal, running the engine with that little water in the oil for that short of time should not hurt anything ....

You have a new bike, correct? Are you running straight water in the radiators?

 

[JasonfromMN]

Well the motor came apart today. Their was not a little amount of water but it was filled to the brim. I believe the head gasket blew right after the end of my last race. Then when I shut it off the pressure in the hot radiators back feed into the engine. This is my theory because the valve train showed no signs of coolant so that should eliminate the water pump. Now if the water pump gasket failed it would have quite a short dump right into the lower crank case area but it still should have flung it around the valve train showing some signs. It was dry of coolant.
So after asking around a bit I'm going to take the advise of replacing the gaskets, get some cheap oil and do several oil changes. I'll get both water pump gaskets, base gasket and head gasket. So far the motor looks to be in excellent shape otherwise. The piston and jug looked perfect.



BOOOOOOOOO-

Coolant spilling out

After removing the plug, water was up to the plug hole

Clean valve train

I did have these black non metallic bits stuck to the oil screen. Not sure what to make of these, few people said carbon from the coolant spillage?

Pulled apart the oil filter, same bits on this. Btw, in this system the oil circulates from the outside to the inside. That's where the bits were caught.

The bits look a lot like what's on here. Coincidence? I'm hoping so, it's a brand new filter.

Rayray, I am running the stock coolant. Im not going to risk filling the rads and running it. Whatever gave gave big enough to empty the rads into the engine. I can only hope that happened after I shut it down.

I believe theirs no other areas coolant can enter from except crazy stuff like cracked cylinder etc right?

 

[ray_ray]

Yea, The total amount of water in the engine is what points at a problem other than the water pump seal ... A leaky seal allows water to seep into the oil ... Once in the oil, the water turns all the oil milky looking quickly I'd guess as it circulates in the engine ...But the entire radiators should not empty very quickly unless the seal is torn up badly ... I was asking about using only water in the radiators because water does not lub the seal well and can cause it to go out quicker ..

Not sure on the oil screens but probably a non event in what ever happened ... Screens just doing their job at catching big chunks of what ever is there ... Maybe stuff from the radiator water ...

Yep, a cracked head or a cracked cylinder are the kiss of death here also ...

What bike is this?

 

[waserman]

Any chance the water pump itself failed causing the engine to overheat ? I would also look into the high flow water pump kit while your doing this, and check the head to make sure it's not warped. Sounds to me like the head gaskit gave out, hopefully and not the cylinder .

 

[HUSKYnXJnWI]

Sorry about your bike Jason- what year and model again? (I know its an xlite of some flavor)

It seams strange to me that the cylinder completely filled up to the spark plug. Seems like it would have to be a perfect storm to have that happen. Concidering the vacume that would create in the cooling system (when cold) (soda straw with your finger on top) it does not seem likely to have happend with a failure of the head gasket or Water pump alone. Maybe both. Maybe it began in the race (water pump- led to head gasket- something alowing release by having pressure- to begin the process and the rest trickled down.) Still seems odd to then fill up the rest of the way. The 11TE310 has a 1.4 bar rad cap- should not be the issue. If its a TE? I wonder if the Thermostat (if it still had one) may have failed also? Just curious?

Regardless- I hope you get it sorted out and you are back racing soon!

 

[JasonfromMN]

Its the 2011 TE 250.

Any chance the water pump itself failed causing the engine to overheat ? I would also look into the high flow water pump kit while your doing this, and check the head to make sure it's not warped. Sounds to me like the head gaskit gave out, hopefully and not the cylinder .

I dont think the water pump failed. In fact im not sure how it could fail except to seize the bearing and that would stop the engine. Its a rotor mounted directly to a gear driven off a cam gear. The seal could fail but that would hose down the entire valve terrain area with coolant. For whatever reason(housing I guess) Halls said the high flow kit will not work on this bike.

Sorry about your bike Jason- what year and model again? (I know its an xlite of some flavor)

It seams strange to me that the cylinder completely filled up to the spark plug. Seems like it would have to be a perfect storm to have that happen. Concidering the vacume that would create in the cooling system (when cold) (soda straw with your finger on top) it does not seem likely to have happend with a failure of the head gasket or Water pump alone. Maybe both. Maybe it began in the race (water pump- led to head gasket- something alowing release by having pressure- to begin the process and the rest trickled down.) Still seems odd to then fill up the rest of the way. The 11TE310 has a 1.4 bar rad cap- should not be the issue. If its a TE? I wonder if the Thermostat (if it still had one) may have failed also? Just curious?

Regardless- I hope you get it sorted out and you are back racing soon!

I think this happened at the last race just before I shut it down. Engine ran with coolant in the oil long enough to circulate just a little(seconds?) but not long enough to even get to the head- head shows no signs of damage or coolant. Then I shut it off and at this point the engine is no longer pulling vacuum but the coolant system is still hot enough to be under lots of pressure. As the bike sits the coolant under pressure slowly seeps into the lower half of the engine waiting to surprise me when I pull the oil drain bolt.

I will look into the thermostat though. Even if im right on the "when this happened" I still don't know the "why". I do think it was the head gasket even though the bike never showed me signs of this going- no loss of power, no smoke, nothin' so im a little stumped on why this happened. If it was from overheating then new gaskets will not solve it, they'll re-blow with a warped head. We'll see.

Now my suspension guy email me "call me" so now I have to go find out whats wrong with my shock......

 

[Huskynoobee]

I would bet that those black bits are possibly pieces of gasket material. I'd probably get the economy size jug of good ol' WD40 and douche everything I could spray it, dump it, or dunk it into. Since WD stands for water displacment it's cheap insurance. Plus it will afford you a little extra film of lubrication until you can get oil circulating in the motor once you've replaced the gaskets and got her buttoned back up.

How many hours do you have on that bike?

 

[JasonfromMN]

I have about 50ish hours. I've been flushing the lower half with oil today and it's coming out clean now.
I believe I have a premature conclusion of what happened. After cleaning the throttle body and entire intake boot I noticed the inside of the air filter is spotless clean which means it didn't pull that black stuff through it. I also noticed on the bottom of the air box I had a couple chunks of mudd not just from the last race but maybe the last few that may have plugged the drain hole on the bottom. The last race was quite wet and I think water pooled up in the air box instead of draining out and eventually got sucked into the engine causing the head gasket to go.
Anyway, here's some xlite guts for ya.

Cylinder in great shape.

Cylinder.

Other side.

Near naked head.

And here is what I believe the culprit to the black specs. It's the cam chain guide.

 

[Aaron8]

My maintenance schedule says it's time for me to inspect that chain slider!

I was going to blow it off because I didn't know how to view the entire thing unless I tore the engine down like you did!

Thanks for the update.

 

[ray_ray]

That chain guide should last quite a while longer ... My 08 TXC250 has over a 1,000 hrs on its slider ...

 

[JasonfromMN]

Yeah I wouldn't get too concerned about the slider. Mine looked in good shape just some black coating flakes of the back. No biggie it went back in the way it came out.