Forum

[dave p]

I've no idea where that first line came from !!!

[stinkwheel]

I can't recall ever having seen a flat circlip on a motorcycle piston. I've put a few in in my time and in a variety of bikes and they have all been wire ones. I'll admit others may have done more but I'd number a tomos moped, a minsk 125, a Jawa 350, an assortment of Honda 125 singles and twins, C90, RD350, GPZ500, GPz305, T500, and of course the bullets.



I always bend the old ones over backwards between two pairs of pliers when I take them out so I don't find it lying on the bench later and worry about having potentially missed one out.

[papasmurf]

Bullet Whisperer, probably because the groove for the wire circlip has the same radius at the bottom the groove as the wire.
Plus as you state, they are NOT the usual rubbish wire circlips.

[ric]

The wear pattern on your latest photo is from contact with the widest point of the gudgeon pin, just in from that point should be a machined face which is there specifically to force the wire ring outwards securing it firmly in place. Once the ears have worn sufficiently to permit the machined face to fully engage with the main body of the wire clip it will be unable to travel any further nor will it be able to further abrade the ears. However this scenario only works when the piston,clip and gudgeon pin used do not comprise of mismatched components. Hopefully your piston and its clips came supplied with the correct matching gudgeon pin.

[Bullet Whisperer]

I wish I could post pictures on here. Anyway, I have just rebuilt a Norton Atlas engine which had the same kind of wear on the same kind of wire circlips with the ears, like we are discussing here. That wear was evident on one side of each of the four circlips and didn't surprise me, but I fitted new ones of the same kind, so it will be safe for tens of thousands of miles before they might show similar signs of wear.

[Leon Novello]

Bullet Whisperer: Scroll to the bottom of page one.

[Bullet Whisperer]

Bottom of page 2, even, Leon! that's exactly how the atlas circlips looked - normal, high mileage wear and tear, I would say. New ones in the Atlas now, as already stated. Regards, Paul.

[Leon Novello]

Bullet Whisperer: Bottom of page 1 to post a picture, sorry form misleading you, Christmas shopping stress kicking in.

[Norm]

Dave I rebuilt bucket loads of these motors, but hey what would I know

[Norm]

And I did all of my cranks