Another RC24 arrived today.......from Boston

Unfortunately she's not budging.

Not sure what's the next best move - before pulling the engine.

Put a breaker bar on it and try again?

Pour some penetrate (Kroil) in the plug holes? WD40? And give it more time before trying to turn it again?

Would you bang on the breaker bar with a hammer, at all? Use a long pipe over the bar for more leverage?

Seems like at a certain point trying to use more force is going to create more damage. Question is...what is that point?

 

Plugs out? No movement at all? Try an endoscope inspection in the cylinder.
How did the oil look?

 

Good morning and thanks for the reply and comments!

The oil looks fine.

Good idea to use an endoscope to inspect. I will do so later today.

Going to hold off on doing anything with force until I can take some more stuff off and take a better look.

 

I'm not familiar with kroil. WD40 is not a good choice. It gets sticky, and doesn't penetrate well.
PB Blaster would be a better alternitive.

A breaker bar, or even a torque wrench that has a longer handle might do the trick.
Are you using a good 6 point socket? You don't want to round off the bolt head!

 

Very first thing is to remove that rare cowl stay before it gets broken off. They are aluminum threads.

Keep soaking (PB or similar), but use something a little longer than that on your next attempt.

 

Thanks guys.....yes it's a 6 point socket.

I hear ya about the stays, Capt. That other RC24 I have has BOTH of it's broken off!

Thanks again!!!

 

Does it matter from where you try and turn the engine over? I usually work in the clutch side.

 

No, the end of the crank is the end of the crank. But you can try the other direction on the opposite side without the bolt loosening on you.

 

Thanks, guys. Probably won't get back to that bike now for a couple more days. Trying to finish up the Blue and White bikes right now that are on my driveway.

Regardless of how this one ends up - with this engine - and I do intend to pursue getting it going - I have made arrangements to have another engine on hand coming from a reputable restoration person, so might end up just using that one. Always good to have contingency plans!

 

Quick update - got some endoscope images last week which showed quite a bit of carbon/crud buildup atop the pistons. Did some Google searches and mention was made in several places about a product called Kreen that helps reduce and clean this kind of buildup. The product is intended as an additive but I also saw it mentioned as a way to clean if used directly on the buildup. While I wait for the replacement engine I figured why not see if this does any good.

So today I injected some in each of the cylinders using a syringe, as I did with the MMO. I will go back and shoot some more pics soon.



I have not tried to turn the engine over again since the first attempt.

Here are some of the endoscope pics - sorry I'm not that great of using this device plus shooting through a spark plug hole down inside a cylinder head is a bit challenging as well.

 

I looks as if you did have a little movement. Given proper workshop facilities I would remove the heads for a cylinder barrel cleaning and closer inspection - and see if anything besides the cylinder barrels need attention. As you said the engine oil was fine, working stepwise top-down should be OK rather than a complete tear-apart.

 

Thank you, dk!

Not sure about the movement part.....but you gave me a thought.

I plan on returning Monday to play with it again and am wondering if i put my endoscope back inside one of the cylinders while using a breaker bar to try and turn it over - would I be able to detect any movement that way?

There's no way I am going to try and "force" anything at this point, so removing the engine/cylinder heads is certainly a probability. Just going to take it one step at a time while I continue work on all the other bikes that are in need of work. Which I am thoroughly enjoying I might say!

And you never know what some continued dosing with a proper solvent could do on whatever is making the pistons stick.....

 

The third endoscope shot looks as if the piston moved a few mm down, doesn't it?

 

These pics are from different cylinders. I didn't keep track of which ones are which. Just started with the two rears and went forward. So not sure form the pics we can determine if they moved or not.

Next time I will write down what pics came from what cylinder, which might help.

Thanks!