So....

About two months ago before I went away to get my TIG welding course my 1990 XT600E was safely (so I thought) parked inside my garage.

One morning I woke up and saw the bike fallen on to the left side and there was a huge puddle of oil spilled on the floor.

So, I painfully picked her up and looked for what was wrong.

The left handside crankcase cover had a hole of the size of a 50cent € punched in.

I removed the cover and went to the only local machine shop available on the island to have the bits "punched-out" and welded all around the crack.

Well, a few days I got the cover back and had to use a dremel-like conic stone with round top to "file" it a bit as it was hitting the rotor.

Guess what I found? the supposed weld was as shit*y as hell!
Full of defects!

So I kept grinding a bit more to see the extent of the welding defects so I could clean it and JB Weld it.

The defects kept getting bigger!
I then grabbed a pointy knife and started "digging" carefully.

After doing this on the biggest defects I had 3 HOLES all the way through with about 2mm diameter each!

Cleaned it with Acetone and let it dry for a bit and than air-sprayed it with compressed air to fully dry it out and take any bits of aluminum dust left..

So I picked up my just arrived today JB Weld and mixed a batch.
Applied the JB Weld generously on both sides, specially on the inside.

I then put it inside the "swimming pool house" as it was hot inside about 30ºC and low humidity..


Just a little ago I went to get it and toke some pictures.

Here they are!









I'll surely need to file it down a bit on the inside but will only "clean" it a bit on the outside so I'm sure it don't leak nowhere lol.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to ride my bikeeeeee HURRAY!!
Hurray for JB WELD!

More pics tomorrow!

Vando

Looks nice.

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Yamaha XT600E '01, Honda XR400 '03, Yamaha XT550 '83

Thanks!

I think it has already fully cured but I'm still going to wait until the 24hours stated on the description.. 4 hours left


By the way, I'm going to fit some of that gasket glue on to the crankcase covers along with a new OEM gasket.... how long should one wait until those type of gasket glues dry up so I can put the oil in?


Vando

I normally do it straight away as it appears to dry very quickly........

I think most of those sealants are anaerobic cure. That means they cure without air.
Once you tighten the bolts down there is no air so the curing process starts.
Same as Loctite.
That JB-weld is good stuff, but it doesn't work when you try and use it to stick magnets with it.
The metal particles in it pile up on top of the magnet. Weird.

If you mix the JB weld properly it goes sticky very fast!

I've now fitted the crankcase back and as expected I did need to sand a bit of the inside.

I forgot to get a new gasket for the e-start gearing cover so I ended up putting some of that liquid glue gasket..

I also put a thin layer on both sides of the crankcase cover and engine side.
On the crankcase cover it was great for holding the new OEM gasket in place :P

I only did it this way because my mechanic advised me to do it the last time as the cover was previously leaking some drops of oil overtime..


Tomorrow I'll fill in the two New liters of oil to replace the others that got spilled on the floor...


I toke some pictures but left the camera in the garage
but did not take any of the liquid glue gasket as I was afraid it would dry up before I'd be able to fit the crankcase cover...

Will post tomorrow the ones I toke.
It shows the generator fitted onto the crankcase cover and how the JB-weld looks like on the inside...

One thing I didn't like to find was... the front disc brake rotor is BENT because of the fall that broke the engine cover!

I'm pissed!


Vando

Hey guys... NEWS FLASH!

Need to redo all the JB WELD work AGAIN!
This time on the right hand side crankcase cover! WTFrack!!!

First I went to turn the bike on and I could too easily move the kickstart with my hand!
I HAD NO COMPRESSION!

I then pressed the e-start button and suddently I heard a "metalishsquirt"/scream whatever...
tried 3 or 4 times and the same metalish sound but just for less than half a second!

I thought oh boy, my Summer is ruined AGAIN!


Then I tried again and pressed the e-start just the same way as before, a very quick press and release and the bike started!

I was SOOOOO HAPPY!


Then I went on to mount the clutch cable holder - the one that has two screws on the LHS cranckcase cover..

After that I went on to start adjusting the chainslack as I'd removed two chain links this morning at a little local bike shop...

When I was tightening the axle nut guess what I found?!

THE HOLE! it's about 1cent € size

I'm soo pissed off right now!

Will have to open up the engine again!
19€ for a new gasket for that side..

At least I won't have to wait too much for the gasket as a friend of mine is if going to pick it up at the Yamaha dealer in São Miguel as he's coming on vacation...

If there wasn't anything inside the engine on that side (pieces of the broken hole) I'd just clean it and JB Weld it...

Hope I can at least salvage the 2 liters of oil I just put today.. WTFrack!!



Sad sad sad sad day for me today
Vando

Well, Just removed the other crankcase cover.

I was almost able to take out the gasket completely good..just one tiny bit missing on one screw hole (the outer part of the screw, not the inside to the engine) and one split on one of the the edges ( on top of the crankcase)..


Well, I won't be using that gasket that's for sure..
New gasket will be here friday night!

Big news is, I found the whole piece of aluminum that fell inside. HURRAY
It was just sitting there on the bottom.

Also, that noise I heard earlier... yeah, that engine side was also without oil!
Must've been the clutch or something..


Well, I'm off.. Party time!
Good night ya'll!

Vando

If you drained al the oil (both places) you need just about 2,7liters to fill it to the top mark.

You should be able to undo the sidecocer without draining the oil, sometimes you need to tilt the bike a bit to the opposite side.

I fixed the LHS cover.
I filled 2 new litters of oil.

Removed the RHS cover upon laying it down on some soft pads so it wouldn't scratch my paint and it was completely empty.

I'm going to filter the oil that I was able to salvage before I toke of the RHS cover and use that.. it should do the trick.

Also, when I opened the oil plug next to the fuel tank while the bike was running, it was only "spitting" oil and air.

Will fill it up slowly when I get everything done..


Vando

Hey guys!

It's 3:21am over here and I've just spent about 30minutes in the garage fitting the new RHS engine crankcase cover gasket upon JB Welding THE HOLE lol

Again, scraped gently everything off with a knife, cleaned everything up with alcohol on both sides of the casings with alcohol, with special attention to the cover because of the JB Weld work prep/sanding to ensure EVERYTHING was perfectly clean.

After that, clean cloth to dry the alcohol and applied liquid gasket glue on both sides of the cases.

Dropped the new gasket perfectly aligned onto the liquid gasket glue on the engine side and gently fitted the crankcase cover.

Aligned all the screws to every hole and adjusted them by hand.
Then in a X-pattern tightened every single one of them to ensure the cover and everything was nice and even so there ain't no leaks afterwards!


Didn't fit the oil filter yet as I wanted to be 100% certain there wasn't any oil on the gasket or gasket liquid glue... No leaks!!!


Hope everything works out just fine!

Will put the oil in tomorrow right after I wake up! lol

Good night ya'll!
Vando

Job well done and hope it works out for you........

She's up and running..
No leaks from the JB weld...

Removed the kickstart for now to ensure no more broken crankcase cover lol


Although I need to go buy another liter of oil as it still doesn't show on the dipstick but have to wait till one of my folks comes by to get me a lift and hopefully the garage is still open as it's kinda a traditional holiday today over here..

How does 10,5€uros/liter sound like for Texaco 10w40 semi-synthetic oil?
A bit pricey huh?! :\


Hope for this week to have her properly running again!
Need to call the painter and ask if he wants my money or not. as it's been two weeks and he still hasn't said anything!


Vando