A good news story for a change
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 2:18 pm
After my 2000 500 suffered a piston decapitation, its now all rebuilt and has now been run in. The bore was OK, as was the big end and main bearings, so the cases were split and everything cleaned out carefully. With a new piston, rings and valve from Mr H fitted it was back on the road. I've just changed the oil after running in, it's still as clear as when it went in, no shiny bits floating in it. The engine runs sweetly and doesn't seem to burn the oil it used to. I wonder now whether the old piston and rings were showing signs of imminent failure for a while as the compression wasn't good and it smoked a bit on starting even though it wasn't wet-sumping. I used a composite head gasket fitted dry, no leaks at all and on re-torqeing the head nothing had came loose. I hope other owners who are having problems will take heart from this, things are rarely as bad as they initially seem. A good time as well to thank Mr.H and his team for their wonderful parts service, without them these problems would be a lot harder to solve.