I Bought It With a Knock

[Big_Jim59]

I'll be following the rebuild & looking foreword to seeing some more cracking photo's Jim

I should just take a picture of a stack of money.

[sirch345]

sirch345 wrote: I used to have two Triton motorcycles...

Coincidence or what, years ago I bought an old Honda CJ250 from a guy who owned a Triton & I bumped into him tonight.

I haven't seen him in 20 years or so, the first thing was out of my mouth? When are you going to sell me that Triton

Never, he said. Its still leaning against the wall rotting in the cellar under his house

Shame, real shame

That's spooky more likely coincidence as you said, interesting all the same. A shame the Triton is just being left to rot

Chris.

[Big_Jim59]

I have taken stock of my parts (crank, rods and case) and have used Honda's number, letter, color codes to determine the necessary bearings. I have made my parts list and turned it in at my dealer (I get a discount!) So now I am waiting on parts and trying to keep my mind on work to pay for it all.

Careful examination shows that the bearings failed from the right to the left. I cannot tell what shape the rear (right rod on the crank) rod bearing was in because it is missing but I will assume it was similar the right main bearing. (See image below.) The right main was locked to the crank. This is the natural state of a spun bearing. Lack of oil makes the bearing surface very hot. It becomes sticky and it locks to the crank.

This is my only concern. The main bearing spun making a slight and I mean really very slight indentation in the case. You can feel it if you rake a fingernail over it. The old bearings do not fit, having collapsed but the bearings from the left side fit just fine. I am not going to replace the case. The best insurance against a spun bearing is plenty of clean oil and good oil pressure.

I am still thinking this was caused by abuse and not by any one component failure.

[Wicky]

Any sign of damage to the bike as a result of stunting and possibly prolonged wheelies causing oil shortage? - or simply badly maintained with oil running low/inccorrectly filled.

[popkat]

I would be thoroughly checking the oil pump, even a slight sign of wear and replace it. also check piston rings, skirts and liners for scuffing, this can happen with low oil pressure.

Your bike looks mega clean, My guess is someone at some point did an oil change and forgot to put the new oil in, early damage was done and continued after the oil was remembered.

Plain bearings need good oil supply or will fail very quickly, You can't beat a roller bearing crank for taking abuse, they only need a splash

[Big_Jim59]

Any sign of damage to the bike as a result of stunting and possibly prolonged wheelies causing oil shortage? - or simply badly maintained with oil running low/inccorrectly filled.

There are no signs of stunting (huge rear sprocket or lots of tip over scaring.) I see signs, on the good used rod bearing set I have, of slight scuffing. This is normal but shows how close to the margin all this runs. If you miss a shift and over rev it, If you lug it out of corners or if you run low on oil bad things will happen to this bottom end.

[Big_Jim59]

I would be thoroughly checking the oil pump, even a slight sign of wear and replace it. also check piston rings, skirts and liners for scuffing, this can happen with low oil pressure.

Your bike looks mega clean, My guess is someone at some point did an oil change and forgot to put the new oil in, early damage was done and continued after the oil was remembered.

Plain bearings need good oil supply or will fail very quickly, You can't beat a roller bearing crank for taking abuse, they only need a splash

This is what is so puzzling, there are no signs of piston scuffing or top end wear. The oil pump feels good (need to check tolerances and signs of scuffing). The oil passages in this thing are HUGE. Honda really meant for this engine to get oiled.

I think a moments abuse loosened one of the rods and that started a snowball effect. A lack of oil pressure at the rod cause a loss of pressure for the rest of the crank.

[darkember]

Did you ever find the missing bearing? That is the weirdest part to the whole story.

[sirch345]

Hello Jim, didn't I read somewhere you mentioning about an oil leak (it may have been in your thread on the Superhawk site?). My thinking is if that was the case, low on oil could explain how this happened

Did you ever find the missing bearing? That is the weirdest part to the whole story.

That is strange I agree, although I believe Jim did find bits of it in the sump. I've not seen the complete bearing missing from a big end journal before

Chris.

[Big_Jim59]

Did you ever find the missing bearing? That is the weirdest part to the whole story.

No, the bearing shell was just gone. I can only guess that the PO opened the sump, removed the rod bearing, declared it toast, put the rod cap back on and the pan together and sold it as a "project bike" that just needed reassembly. I have purchased bikes with problems before but usually you don't see someone go to this much trouble to willfully hide a defect this big.

[Big_Jim59]

Due to the damage I found around the main bearing and the indentation made when the bearing locked to the crank and spun, I have ordered a used set of cases off eBay. The seller is including the matching pistons. These are from the same seller that supplied me with the crank and rods so I am pretty sure they are all from the same engine. After a bit of reflection, I spent an additional $25 and got the oil pump from that seller as well. I'll just replace my engine one piece at a time. The seller claims that this engine only had 9K miles on it so I should have a good solid bottom end when I am done.

I am pretty sure the engine would live if I used the old components but I would be forever worried about it (I am a cranked up worrier after all) and I would never feel comfortable running it hard or selling it along to someone else. It will set my time line back a bit as I will have to reevaluate my bearing order after I examine the case for the code letters.

Might as well do it right!

[tony.mon]

You should be fine. i think it's been run low on oil but although that often shows on the top end first (plain journals on the cam to head surfaces get very hot and melt.....) you have bottom end probs- puzzling.
Wonder of someone tried to squirt Nitrous into it?

Back to the Rocket Three and Trident, I had one of the first hundred Tridents built- four speed box, drum brakes front and rear, ray-gun pipes. Lovely to look at, but heavy, and the brakes were horrible- you had to pull them on as you passed the pub before the one you wanted to stop at.

Should have kept it, it was about the only bike I've ever had that would have increased in value but hey.
That wrecked mains on the primary drive side, but only because I overtightened the primary drive triplex chain, acting on advice from a "friend" who said it should have no slack at all.

And it taught me another lesson- never use Pledge polish on a leather seat.
I was hanging on by my fingertips......

[Big_Jim59]

You should be fine. i think it's been run low on oil but although that often shows on the top end first (plain journals on the cam to head surfaces get very hot and melt.....) you have bottom end probs- puzzling.
Wonder of someone tried to squirt Nitrous into it?

Back to the Rocket Three and Trident, I had one of the first hundred Tridents built- four speed box, drum brakes front and rear, ray-gun pipes. Lovely to look at, but heavy, and the brakes were horrible- you had to pull them on as you passed the pub before the one you wanted to stop at.

Should have kept it, it was about the only bike I've ever had that would have increased in value but hey.
That wrecked mains on the primary drive side, but only because I overtightened the primary drive triplex chain, acting on advice from a "friend" who said it should have no slack at all.

And it taught me another lesson- never use Pledge polish on a leather seat.
I was hanging on by my fingertips......

I can't stress enough how huge the oil passages are on the VTR and while the oil pressure was gone for the bottom end I have no doubt that it was still continuing to splash the top end with all kinds of lubricant.

Tridents had poor assemble to start. The clutch pull rode bearings always went out because you had to set them with a little drag to get the clutch to fully separate. The middle rods tied up (I had a Rocket Three lock up idling in my stall while I figured the ticket!) They all smoked. The factory rings were junk. We finally went to a one piece oil control ring and that fixed the oil consumption. The T160 was my favorite with 5 speeds, electric start and a big tank. I liked the look of the cylinder canted forward but that was just a styling exercise. The only bad thing about the T160 was the seat. They had to install a bigger battery for the e start. They couldn't go wider so they went taller. The seat got thinner as a result and it was as comfortable as an ironing board.

I had a Norton with brakes like that. You would grab a handful and it would think about stopping. I love modern brakes. I had a Moto Morini with twin leading shoe front brakes. It was funny because you would pull the brake lever and think "nothing's happening" and then you would panic and pull it hard and the thing would stand you on your nose. I never got used to it.

Tridents don't bring the big money around here because 1)not many people bought them, 2) Not that many people know what they are and 3)Honda overshadowed them with the CB750. Nice Triumph twins are pretty thick on the ground over here. The US was a HUGE market for Triumph because they were as close to a sport bike as you could get back then. Your only other choice was a Harley Sportster and that wasn't even close to the performance of a Triumph twin.

[VTRDark]

Keep up the good work jim.

Talking about Harley's, I thought you may like flick through the following thread for some pics.
http://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic ... it=fh+warr

Have a measure up of the oilways and compare to the parts you get. There may be a tell tale sign there.

(:-})

[Big_Jim59]

Keep up the good work jim.

Talking about Harley's, I thought you may like flick through the following thread for some pics.
http://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic ... it=fh+warr

Have a measure up of the oilways and compare to the parts you get. There may be a tell tale sign there.

(:-})

The only Harley I ever even considered wanting was the XR1200 and they quit making it because wasn't a lumbering traffic blocker. I guess i never drank the Harley Cool-Aid. The pics were nice. It looked like a great event.