Swapping 1600 into an 03 1500cc Nomad

[colin]

Well, found more that's wrong with the engine. Took a good look for the first time at the disassembled top end -both cams have deep score marks on them, as do the journals on the the head.

Reaching out to the company that sold the engine... again. I might need to cannibalize that 1500 after all. :/ Damn what a nightmare. I learned a tough lesson in this experience.

[DragonLady58]

Sounds like a oiling problem up top, One piece of good news, the cams and head components are interchangeable, so move ahead with the gears box fix. Between the 2, you'll have enough to put together a good engine/trans....
Discovering what you found, I'd spring for a new oil pump. Chances are the bike lost the oil filter, oil filter gasket blew, OR someone went into engine previously, didn't align things right/ left some dirt behind on the cams....

[colin]

Yeah. I can actually hook my thumb nail on the grooves on one of the cams, and on the journal there's visible material protruding above the surface, so something definitely happened.

The guy at showtime powersports is trying to say they're fine, that the can be cleaned up with Emery cloth. I'm gonna need to send them better pictures or a video because those are NOT going back in the engine no matter what.

Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll do the right thing by helping me out, but they're not making it easy. They literally have a set of heads and cams on eBay from the same seller that look good, but now I'm jumping though all this BS to prove how bad they are through pictures. *sigh*

[colin]

Ok, so I sent them some pictures and they're going to get back to me monday.

Meanwhile - I've been working on getting the rest of it stripped down, and I've gotten the clutch side completely disassembled. I've run into the issue though, of not being able to get the flywheel off. Specifically, the "ratchet" bushing that sits between the flywheel bolt washer and the flywheel absolutely will not budge. The first time around, as I originally moved my nomad's charging system over, it wasn't difficult at all, and the bushing came out seemingly fine. This time it's not moving. Any recommendations for getting that thing off? It's aligned on the spine, so it's not like it's supposed to twist or anything.

I've spent about an hour and a half on it with no dice. I'll give it another try tomorrow, but if anyone has a trick to getting that out, it might save me another few hours. :)

EDIT: Figured it out. It was somehow tilted on the spline a tiny bit and the little ratchet hooks kept it locked in place. Not sure how that happened. :/ Anyway, it looks good so I'll continue on tomorrow.

[DragonLady58]

A big fat dead blow hammer is your friend when pulling the flywheel off....if it cocks in the slightest, it can be a bitch to free it up again. When it starts to move, carefully pull on it straight, it should glide right off....with very little effort....

[colin]

Ok, got the cases split, the rods and crankshaft out. I'll remove the rods from the crank this evening to check the bearings, but so far things are looking good.

[MAS Tequila]

Best of luck to you.

[colin]

Well, clicked reply and my browser crashed, so let me try again :)

MAS - I didn't see that you mentioned not to pull the rods and crank - I must have completely missed that whole post as I was re-reading things a moment ago. Anyhow, as is such, I pulled the rods from the crank, and checked both, and I think they look ok. There's discoloration on the rod bearings side, as well as under the bearing, but no actual damage to the smoothness or straightness of the surface from what I can tell. The crank "rod" surfaces look utterly perfect, as do the rest of the wearable surfaces on the crank. No sign of wear whatsoever. Same for the case side bearings for the crank. They look perfect as well.

BUT, being that I pulled them (rod bearings), I'm going to need new ones. I ordered them a few days ago, but they have yet to ship from Partzilla, and are scheduled to go out mid-late next week. I'll probably spend the next little bit pulling and swapping the transmission gear sets, but after that it'll largely be a waiting game until things start arriving in the mail.

[colin]

Ok, so finally wrapped things up with the company that sold me the engine. Spoke with the owner, and the best I could get him to do was half the price of the heads he had in stock, so long story short, I paid $75 and I'm getting good heads.

He mentioned there was a tiny bit of corrosion on one of the valves, so I'll likely have to have them inspected no matter what, but at least it's something. I asked if they needed to be lapped, and he said at worst, but would probably be fine if I cleaned them up with scotch brite. If anyone's interested in the looking at the heads themselves, here's a link to the ebay listing where I picked them up from: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2004-KAWASA...53.m1438.l2649

If anything is suspect about them after I receive them, I'll start using the 1500 engine for parts as this pretty much closed the case with them. While the overall experience has been more than a disappointment, I think the value that will be gained by ripping one of these motors apart and reassembling will be more than worth it. The experience was rough as I bought the engine in the middle of winter, assuming it to be a winter project, and by the time all the damage was realized, it was 2-3 months later at least. Anyway, lesson learned.

I'll probably be pretty quiet for the next week or so until parts start arriving. Once they do, I'll be back with plenty more questions I'm sure. ;)

[colin]

Ok, got the transmission out to look at the damage, and it's worse than I thought, however, having a complete transmission to go in helps a lot. 2 bad shift forks and there's some wear/chipping on the dogs as well, so I think the previous owner was pretty hard on the transmission in general. Links to hi-res pictures below.

Shift fork
Other shift fork
Wear on gear dogs

Before I get the last transmission gear set out, I'm supposed to remove the internal oil passage pipe. I found the 2 bolts that need to come out, but how do I actually get the pipe out? I don't want to bend anything...

[mick56]

I doff my cap to you mate.Not a job i would want to take on.

[colin]

So far it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought. The important part for me, that will hopefully pay off dividends, is keeping the nuts and bolts super organized so that it'll be easier and more logical to put back together. It hasn't helped YET though, as I'm still technically disassembling. I think if I end up doing this to my other engine, I can't imagine that it'd take much longer than an hour or two to get down to splitting the cases, but again, I think the majority of the time spent has just been in organization and labeling.

I've really only got one thing left to remove from the engine case, and that's the internal oil pipe. One of the transmission gears actually sits under that pipe, so the shaft and gears can't be removed until the pipe is removed. I've been thinking of hitting the connection points with PB blaster, but I'm hoping someone will chime in with what's ok and what's not with regards to removing it. I'd thought about prying it up point by point, but am worried about scoring the edges where the pipe connects to the case, so I've decided to wait.

[DragonLady58]

Take the bolts from oil line, to free it, I leave the one closest to the inlet pipe just screw it in finger tight in as far as you can. I have a piece of hardwood thats cut into a short legged L. I get that, using a wrench that will just fit over the line on the open end side.
I slide the wrench over the line, then using the wooden L, I gently upwards, pipe should just slide out, it taps into the hole.
Once you get it to move, you can wiggle it back and forth while prying up, should come right out.
Maybe MAS will input how he gets his out....I discovered this by accident....works pretty well for me though. You don't have alot of room. You could use a screw driver if your extremely careful. End just slides in.
Every Wrench/Mechanic probably does it a little differently....
Kinda like the oil pump pickup tube on a oil pump....its a tight fit

Nicks and shit on the sliders and the bent shifting fork comes from folks trying to shift gears without the trans gears turning, and them trying to force it. Looks like that one engine/trans had some oiling issues if those big end bearings were discolored.... or they ran the engine hot....like blew a coolant hose or radiator....

[colin]

Ok cool. I'll give that a shot tonight after getting home. Once that oil pipe is out, the last transmission shaft should pop right out.

As far as the discolored rod ends, it's the rod end only, but not actually the bearing itself. Is the discoloration anything I should be worrying about if the surfaces under the bearings are smooth?

[MAS Tequila]

I just pull (it's not easy) on them, using my fingers to wedge up under the oil pipe.

Not very scientific but it works for me.

What has the seller had to say about the scrap engine he sold you?

If the cams and heads aren't usable, that engine is absolutely worthless as a MS engine.