Irregular "tink, tink" sound from motor, lots of s

Hi all. The following happened to a 2001 FS650E.

On the way home (fortunately) I went from having a very nice ride to hearing something bouncing around in my engine. Tink, tink, tink a tink, tink. Like that. I immediately pulled the clutch and let revs drop to idle. Bike idled fine, sound of bike might have changed a small bit. With about 2 miles to go and no trailer at home I selected a gear that got me home at about 25mph at low (not lugging) rpm. Crap. Bike still idled fine when I got home, noise was not present at idle and was much diminished when I revved it a bit at a stop.

Drained the oil and pulled the side cover today to find the oil screen covered in a rich layer of ferrous metal. Very finely ground. In the bottom of the left side I found the same sort of bits, but with a few larger chunks. Two of the chunks looked like foil that had been pressed through some gear teeth.

I have the side cover and valve cover off and can't find anything that looks remotely ground up or missing. The only thing I can't really see from here is the transmission gear set.

The metal seems to be soft-ish. There are a few flakes of a much brighter and harder looking metal under the cam, but none of the other bits seem to have made it up there. My guess is that something like a small nut came loose somewhere and was ground mostly to dust.

So, I'm tempted to clean out the case, reassemble, and ride blissfully ignoring the remainder of the noise. Bad idea?

Any hints as to what this might be? I can't imagine Husaberg packs extra nuts and washers in the case for fun?

What might I expect to pay (in Ohio, USA) to have the motor split and reassembled if something has let go?

Thanks,
Dennis

Check the top end. I had one of nuts that lock the valve adjustment come loose. It sounded like a nut in an empty coffee can. Luckily it had wedged itself between the valve spring and the side and was wearing the side quite rapidily. luckily no damage.

Pull the rocker box off and check the cam followers, that's what it sounds like to me.

The cam follower is the roller? I'll have a look.

Now, how do I clean out the shavings? Brake cleaner?

The rollers look brand new, assuming round, shiny, little play, spin freely is new.

While pulling covers, etc, I noticed that my valve adjustment (done about four rides ago) was probably not done at TDC. I'm guessing that if done correctly TDC should be the only point at which the rockers have any clearance at all?

schultzy said:

Check the top end. I had one of nuts that lock the valve adjustment come loose. It sounded like a nut in an empty coffee can. Luckily it had wedged itself between the valve spring and the side and was wearing the side quite rapidily. luckily no damage.

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Nut in a coffee can describes it perfectly. I checked that first as I'd recently adjusted the valves (poorly, it turns out) but no luck. They're all on there solid.

After reading your reply, and re reading your post, I see that you already pulled the rocker box, sorry.

Sounds to me like you had better pull it apart and find out what happened, something let go and got ground to bits, and that metal cream of wheat got pumped through the whole motor. Was the oil screen collapsed due to it being clogged and the suction from the oil pump? What did the oil filter look like? If it is not completely packed you may have gotten lucky and the metal mush did not get pumped through the oiling system, and the shavings you found under the cam may have just been lifted there by the cam chain. Your bike has the oil pressure fed rocker arms, is there any shavings in the rocker arm shafts?

The foil you describe sounds like hard facing that has come off of a bearing in a strip and passed through the transmission.

When you say "While pulling covers, etc, I noticed that my valve adjustment (done about four rides ago) was probably not done at TDC. I'm guessing that if done correctly TDC should be the only point at which the rockers have any clearance at all?" what exactly do you mean by that? Did you find excessive play in the tappets? If the valve adjustment was done on overlap the bike would run quite poorly, and it would not have idled very well if at all.

Tell us a bit more about your bike. Did you buy it new? How many hours do you think it has on it, or how many miles? How do you ride it-track day, daily commuter, grocery getter?

Dale, thanks for taking the time. I've been reading that you might have other things on your mind.
I bought the bike used this year. I'm the third owner. The second didn't have it very long, quickly realized it was way more bike than he wanted. The original owner seems to have had a stable of bikes and didn't ride this one much. I was told it had fewer than 20 hours on it, and I've got receipts from yearly services and updates that seem to support only a hundred or so miles a year. The tires look to be the originals and are barely scuffed up. I've only got a handful of 25 mile rides on it this year, having taken some time to add turn signals (not required in original owner's state) etc. I hope to ride it quite aggressively but as yet have been really taking it easy, trying to learn the bike and let it prove to me that it's reliable.

The screen was covered in fine bits, almost like a chunky paste but not blocking the screen entirely, easy to move around. It was not collapsed. The filter looks to have only a few flakes. The few flakes under the rocker cover don't look be related. I'll check the rocker shafts. Thanks for the tip.

The tappets seemed to have more play than they had when I adjusted them. But I was scrambling around so my observations shouldn't be trusted. I'll look at it much more closely when I've gotten it put back together.

I'm a struggling amateur mechanic, but have some good help. Unfortunately he's not worked with 'bergs. Should I leave this one to a dealer? Can anyone suggest a good mechanic in the middle of Ohio? I'm going to remove the motor, I can at least do that much!

Hey Grised,

You can download the workshop manuals from the .com site for free. I don't know what the going rate would be to split those cases and re assemble, as far as labor goes, but, it should be around $350 to $400, I think the gasket kit is around $100.

The 01's had a few issues since they were the first generation of this new motor design. One such issue was the single bearing counter balancer bearing, that was later updated to a double bearing design. In fact, I updated my 01 501 motor to the double bearing design, it's easy.

It's good news that the oil pump pre filter was not collapsed, and there was very little material on the main filter. However, I'd still pull the oil pump apart and check it for damage, and the plastic drive gear. It's all behind the clutch basket.

So, since you are the 3rd owner of this bike, and there was so much material in there, IMHO,you should probably tear it down and see what's up.

take a close look at the cam bearings. the ones that the are at either end of the cam. see if one or both has spit off the retainer that holds the balls in place. really easy to see if you have shielded bearings, they will be blown out. the refuse you described sounds like a ground up retainer and ball.

No luck on the cam bearings. They still have retainers and balls and look sanitary. Something easy to change would be great!

Please, all, keep them coming. That motor doesn't look nearly so fun to take out as I thought!!

Speaking of, the manuals online for 01 cover the motor itself. Are there any manuals that cover things like swingarm pivot pin removal?

I think Dale's right, its sounds like counter balancer slap.

I know it sounds like a nasty thing to say but the metallic sludge can be from the big ends roller bearing cage, mines worn,

the rod, pin and even the rollers are fine but the cage has been wearing out on the ID of the rod. when I flushed out the big end this time a lot of sludge came out of the big end.

I don't know about the noise though.

check for the bolt that holds the front camchian guide in place. it is situated above the intermediate gear/lower camchain sprocket.

regards

Taffy

The camchain guide bolt is in place too. I honestly can't find anything that looks like it should have a fastener or a pin that isn't in place. Been through my parts manual and the online service manuals too.

Has anyone had transmission troubles that might make this happen? I'm about ready to pull the motor out and figure out where to get it gone over.

still might be the big end I guess

looks like the 32mm big ends use brass - ish coated cages

35mm big ends use a silver - ish coated steel cage.

anyone been able to locate replacement big end bearings?

Hey grisezd,

have you checked your ignition timing? The pinging could be detonation under load? Wont happen til you grab a handfull of husaberg or hill climbing underload. I'm sure it's got how to check it in the DOC.

bushmechanic said:

still might be the big end I guess

looks like the 32mm big ends use brass - ish coated cages

35mm big ends use a silver - ish coated steel cage.

anyone been able to locate replacement big end bearings?

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You're a real ray of sunshine, aren't you?
Thanks, though, it could very well be that.

In any case, I think it's going to take splitting the case. I don't have the tools or inclination to handle this one. Maybe when my kid's 50 needs rebuilt, but not on my "good" bike!!

And the winner is...

And the winner is... Counter Balancer Bearings!!!!! Whee!

My mechanic said that the counterbalancer bearings have failed. He said that the transmission looks to be unaffected, but that he thinks we should replace the crankshaft and countershaft bearings to be safe. And while we're there we should either rebuild or replace the crankshaft since the big end bearing is probably full of shavings. In any case, the rod bushing is badly worn and needs replacement if it's available as a part.

While looking around he noticed that the piston sleeve is shot. Lots of sitting around made rust made scoring. So, piston, rings, sleeve.

Finally, he found a small circlip in the water jacket next to the piston sleeve. He guesses that it's a water pump clip. I've got mine safety stored with the water pump, so it's someone else's. We don't think the motor has been apart, so anybody missing one?

With this comely list of bad parts, are there good options for me? Mechanic suggested I might go aftermarket for some of the items, like crankshaft (if available), big bore kit, etc. Advisable?

Hooray, I've just bought a full rebuild!!!

Be sure to get / use the updated double row bearing counter balancer which is a different part number than the original single row bearing counter balancer. I believe the part number is in "the doc".

This is again a different part number than the late 02 updated part.