Good friend of mine and a group of us were riding in the Arkansas hills last weekend ...
Dumped his low mileage bike in a river and filled the engine with water to a degree no one expected ... Got it cleaned out as much as possible (We were in the middle of no where) .... Added some fresh oil (not enough but no choice) and rode out of there ...
Rode 15 miles to closest gas station and drained the milky oil .. changed the oil and rode 25 miles back to camp. Arrived at camp and drained the entire thing again and refilled. Checked top end, it looked ok although there was a tick ...
We figured that it was a cam journal or journal cap and either way we could deal with it upon our return ...
Rode the entire next day without any drama (several hundred miles or so) ... All seemed well ..
Left for final day of riding the next morning. Ran about 20 miles and without warning, his rear tire locked at speed (About 60MPH) ... He rode (like a boss) the skid for about 400 feet and then low sided at low speed. He was unscathed ... Total and immediate engine lock ... Never seen anything like this before ...
We trailered the bikes back and began an engine teardown ...
We hoped to "fix" her. Wishful thinking but hey HOPE ...
In any event, this is what we found ... She has gone her last mile ... :frown2::frown2::frown2:
Ouch; replacement motor is likely the easiest solution. BTW, I've had to fix "submarined" bikes many times.....some have been fine, some haven't though the worst was a top end rebuild due to sand/silt.
So in this situation, I'd like to know what should have been done? Given that the bike went down in the river, where did they go wrong? Should they simply not have tried to start it, and had it towed out of there?
My guess would be that there was an attempt to start it while hydrolocked - this would have cracked the case and then it held together until it didn't.
Agree, that damage could best be explained by hydro-lock.
I'm trying to map back how enough water was still in the case/bore after the two oil changes.
I'm thinking the airbox / filter coughed up a cup of h2o and the piston was forced to prove the liquid was in-compressible.
Otherwise, I find highly plausible the "most damage occurred on first restart after submarining" then case catastrophically failed when running down the road.
Yeah, I was thinking more of - they hit the starter fresh out of the water and then did the oil draining, etc. ......or it may even have locked up while running....not sure if that's even possible
I would suspect that something came adrift in the transmission and let two pairs of gears engage at the same time, that would cause an instant lock up with enough force to crack the cases. Had it happen to an old YZ 250, destroyed the crankcases and threw me over the handlebars wide open in third gear. Not sure how going for a swim would cause the transmission to fail though. I suspect you are going to see some shattered gears and busted shift forks when you open it up. Hydro-lock will bend or bust the rod, which would probably lock it up, but you should see other evidence, like the rod sticking out of the front of the motor.
Not sure how going for a swim would cause the transmission to fail though. I suspect you are going to see some shattered gears and busted shift forks when you open it up. Hydro-lock will bend or bust the rod, which would probably lock it up, but you should see other evidence, like the rod sticking out of the front of the motor.
My thought was that instead of bending the rod, it broke the case by transmitting the energy through the rod/crank.....the broken case could then allow all kinds of movement that shouldn't happen, including the transmission....but who knows
And I suspect that it may have been a broken gear dog from 3rd gear which got in between gear teeth and wedged the transmission shafts apart. Been several broken 3rd gear dogs posted on various forums.
The crankshaft turns CW, the transmission Input shaft turns CCW, which turns the transmission Output shaft CW. The breakage appears to support transmission failure which probably had nothing to do with the prior 'submarineing'.
Doesn't the output shaft turn CCW? That's where the front sprocket mounts, right? CCW like the rear tire, from the (left) side of the bike where all this business resides…
Could an engine seize cause the rear tire to lock, simply by virtue of its being connected "in gear?"
I'm gathering that the moral of this story is, if you drop your bike in water, you better make sure the headers, exhaust, airbox, crankcase and combustion chamber are all clear of water before hitting the starter again. MrZappo, How deep was the water you guys dropped it in?
Doesn't the output shaft turn CCW? That's where the front sprocket mounts, right? CCW like the rear tire, from the (left) side of the bike where all this business resides…
Well, probably 2 to 2.5 feet. Let's just say that we exceeded the skill/age/depth/balls ratio a little.
I agree that everything is not adding up. It looks like a transmission failure but I still question if a piston seize could lock a tire up. It literally stopped spinning. Hard lock at speed. Smoking tires and a 300 to 400 foot skid.
Instinct tells us to pull in the clutch. Which would Dis-Engage the transmission from a seized Engine and allow the rear wheel to resume rolling.
But a seized Transmission can not be dis-engaged from the rear wheel. Dis-engaging from the engine would do nothing, the engine was already 'stalled'.
I would have bet that with the clutch squeezed, the engine would have re-started with the E-button, alongside the road.
Well, probably 2 to 2.5 feet. Let's just say that we exceeded the skill/age/depth/balls ratio a little.
I agree that everything is not adding up. It looks like a transmission failure but I still question if a piston seize could lock a tire up. It literally stopped spinning. Hard lock at speed. Smoking tires and a 300 to 400 foot skid.
Thanks for the sanity check, pdw! I think you're right about the instinct to disengage the clutch, and I gather that you guys are certain the transmission is locked as well…
This has been very educational. Bottom line, stay out of the water, or if you do make sure it get completely drained and dried out before attempting a restart?
2018 KLR 650
Mods in Progress
Clovis NM (till the AF moves me again)
The gear shifter was crunchy on the side of the road and banging it up and down finally resulted in the bike being able to be rolled. It made a mechanical noise while being rolled but we were able to get it in the trailer.
The clutch could not be moved in or out. You could pull the lever but any movement was slack in the shifter, cable, linkage. The actual clutch connection at the crankcase would not move.
The end result was definitely a transmission issue.
I am simply questioning the cause. Either the trans failed and the top end had nothing to do with it or, the piston seized. I just have no idea if a seized piston could stop so suddenly as to cause an immediate freeze of the rear wheel.
The end result was definitely a transmission issue.
I am simply questioning the cause. Either the trans failed and the top end had nothing to do with it or, the piston seized. I just have no idea if a seized piston could stop so suddenly as to cause an immediate freeze of the rear wheel.
Could the transmission finding itself suddenly between a seized engine and a moving rear wheel, and equally connected to both, have caused it to go all crunchy?
No, a seized engine did not damage the transmission.
But misalignment of the transmission gears may have occurred, owing to excessive crack growth in the engine case. And the misaligned gears may have locked up the transmission and rear wheel. But what caused the crack in the engine case?
There's simply too much speculation and not enough evidence to draw any kind of sensible conclusions. As we say down here in south Texas, we're swatting at an empty piñata.
I had a newly rebuilt top end on a 250 Rotax 2 stroke seize and lock the back wheel at around 60 MPH.
I quickly grabbed a handful of clutch and got it straightened out.
Piston was not seized but it was entirely disconnected from anything.
The connecting rod failed and wedged itself which stopped the engine cold.
We have not opened the bottom end to report on the carnage yet. I don't expect that it will be pretty.
Working theory is that it had water in the airbox that kept feeding into the engine. At first it was running but would not Rev at all. We think that the water was getting into the cylinder which could not be compressed and slightly bent the rod.
It ran for 2 days after the event and perhaps finally snapped and failed.
Still totally amazed that it ran for that long after the event. Very odd.
Will post up the bottom end in a few days.
Piston itself looks fine, valves look fine, the head journals may be scored a little and not sure if it (head) is a total loss. Cylinder looks to be undamaged.
The shot of the piston with a piece of con rod attached is malevolently beautiful.
It reminds me of my Norton Commando when a piston grenaded at redline. The unsupported connecting rod then slapped back and forth and totaled the cylinder sending big chunks of steel from the sleeves into the crank case. I was late getting home that evening.
More carnage........I split the cases on my Ducati single race bike after a loss of power (while I was leading, of course). Upon separation the two halves of the crank remained in their respective sides of the crank case. That spelled the end of my club racing days. I was too broke to fix it.
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