Forum

[Les H]

Hi Rob. I would just clean the filter and carry on riding it. The white metal sometimes flakes off the edges of the floating bush which won't matter and you say you have no apparent big end wear. Whatever happens next to your engine, you will get fair warning so unless you intend to a very long journey just enjoy riding it and don't worry, it will not seize. Perhaps remove the front filter every week or two to check for more white metal flakes, and there is a fair chance that you might not get much more. It would seem pointless to me ditching the bike if it was running ok, everything on these can be put right and improved at modest cost. So "cheer up...it might never happen"....it a good phrase to keep in mind here I think. Congrats on riding a motorbike at your age, I certainly hope I will be able to.

[MadMike]

Les I don't wish to be argumentative but suggesting running an engine knowing that somewhere metal is being dumped into the lubrication system is frankly irresponsible.

[Les H]

Hi Mike...no problem with your reply but calm down a little eh! The white metal IS NOT "being dumped into the lubrication" as you suggest! The route of the white metal flakes is thus: It has flicked off the the big end into the oil...the scavenge pump sucks up the sump oil VIA the filter......the white metal is stopped AT the filter.....end of white metal journey!!.... The white metal can be easily be removed from the filter....so no metal in the lubrication system...Note also, white metal is soft.....If regular checks are done as suggested I cannot see any problem at all in adding some extra miles to the bike....I'm never irresponsible MadMike....I just see things realistically that's all.

[Dennis C]

Les, In this case I can understand your advice to Bob up to a point, also there is more than one thread floating about (no pun intended), if you look around for these threads I think you will find that the first thing Bob noticed was the engine started rattling and then he found metal in the oil, as far as I have followed these mixed posts I have not read anywhere that the type of metal has been determined. ------- Sorry but under the circumstances I agree with Mike, it would be very foolish to continue riding a bike with a rattling engine and metal deposits in the oil. Kind regards Dennis.

[Les H]

Hi Dennis. It is is difficult for anyone of us to gauge how serious the problem is when someone says they have a "rattling" engine. However it is easy and wasteful to always assume the worst and the engine is beyond service when all that was wrong was a few white flakes on the scavenge filter which could easily be incidental to the the rattle. Without reading all the previous symptoms again, all I would say is that on this post alone, to which I am replying, Robert says he has NO big end wear...no knocking.....etc, so where is the noise coming from?...well as you would know, the noise could be coming from many different things, and many benign harmless things too. So just because there is a rattling noise, I was suggesting he could continue to ride the bike with caution by monitoring the front filter and, as said by me, there is a good chance that he will not get any more white metal flakes so don't jump to the conclusion that the engine is scrap...BUT if he did get lots more, then this would mean that the big end was on it's way out....but only if he did! Then again the rattle is still possibly sourced elsewhere and not from the big end.

[MadMike]

Les if you read Robertos message you will see that he appears to have examined the internals of the engine, the bore, big end, small end and piston etc. So if the engine is already stripped then it makes total sense to do the refurbishment and internal clean. To suggest that some metal has simply flaked off of the big end and that there is no other metal present is ignoring all good engineering practices. The fact that there are no more large pieces caught by the coarse filter may merely indicate that file metallic contamination has passed into the lubrication cycle and would then creat grinding paste within the engine. Remember the basic reason for the oil is to keep metal surfaces apart not to allow metal, no matter how coarse or fine, to circulate within the engine. Read tapers experience, and I recall that initially some on here told him that the filter system in an Enfield would protect his engine........they were wrong.

[rustygman]

I get the feeling roberto has lost interest and gone for a cup of tea but you boys carry on. If I was 81 and still riding I suspect I would go for a suzuki 125 as well.

[Les H]

Hi Mike. Has Robert completely stripped the engine then? I just thought he had the barrel off. All I know was that he said there was no wear on the big-end. White metal is very similar to lead, and will be impossible to wear steel or cast iron. Robert has also said there is NO metal in the oil. All engines have to cope with microscopic amounts of metal and usually they are very hard being of cast iron or steel. The white metal bush tends to flake off and cannot get ground away later if trapped on the mesh filter. Any normal wear particles that are fine enough to get through the mesh filter are mostly filtered and stopped by the feed pump side fabric filter. Whatever does get through the fabric filter will be normal and will be below a certain size.....not as samll as modern filters but reasoably fine, any particle getting through is not good...but normal! So if you are saying that normal wear particles that can get by the fabric cleaner are going to devestate the engine, you had better not start the engine as those size particles usually steel or iron are ALWAYS circulating in a normal running engine anyway so it is no point in you trying to paint a picture of handfulls of devastating lumps even microscopic size pieces of very soft white metal wreaking havoc in an engine by grinding everything away Cos' It just aint going to happen, nor is it possible! The bigger the flakes the less chance of them going anywhere...the smaller the particles are the ones that get by....and the hard steel ones are the worst but, as already said, they are always in circulation in any engine, so tiny particles of white metal (If any) are no worse a problem. If I have missed that Robert has his engine removed and stripped down then I would replace the big end with a roller bearing.

[Les H]

After reading back to my first & second posts, I thought I should make it clear that the filter I am refering to is the metal-mesh sump scavenge filter which is the one that Roberto is referring to where his white metal flakes have been trapped... I just want to make that clear in case some one mistakenly thinks the "filter" referred to in those first two posts is the "feed side fabric filter" that I go onto refer to only later in my fourth post.

[Norm]

Les, the thing is you don't know how much is flaking off and the way to find out is to pull the rocker blocks, the whitemetal won't go through these and collects there and eventually blocks them off and then the oil pressure builds up to a point of stripping the spindle. The Hitch pressure relief valve mod will save the spindle but the damage is done