Crankshaft outrigger bearing lubrication

[Rufustbear]

Just like to mention that putting case in an oven does work but not the best way because every thing expands including the bearing,best to heat the outer surface of the case with a large soft flame (calor gas type) spit on it if it sizzles and jumps then on a flat piece of timber (using gloves) bang /slam down the case,out it comes takes about 5 Min's,pulling the bearing out cold can be bad you always bring bits of metal with it

 

[Jugs_S]

Added an extra pix to my last post in this thread. You can see the transfer hole clearly its quite high up compaired to the dip stick held at right level. if you filled the oil with it on the old original side stand (like any one dose) it would probably run through the breather port you can see behind th dip stick.

Jugs_S

 

[Rufustbear]

The oil hole which is the first one(feed) of the pump is not only on the 120 i have it on my 1980 180 Jota i think i would be temped to make both mods on your engine,interesting idea if only the oil feed hole in the upright tube (the one with the ball bearing pressed in) was added from the pump the primary chain cases would possibly be holding an extra 2 pints of oil? because of the height of the present oil hole in the wall of the cases,at present very little oil would be getting through,Phil Todd's needed on this one, is he on the Forum yet ? Oh and while your there bang in a 1200 oil pump

 

[Dellortoman]

I tried heating the primary case. There's no way that bearing is going to come out just with heat. I had a closer look, and the edge of the bearing boss in the alloy primary case has been peened over with some kind of punch to hold the bearing in. It's going to need a bit of ingenuity to get it out. I'll have to make a puller and maybe relieve the lip of the boss with a dremel where it's been squished over the end of the bearing. I know this bike's history, and this bearing has not been removed before, so the punching around the edge of the boss was done at the factory.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[sfcpiet]

Hi Cam,

Yep, those punch marks are ex-factory.  Don't worry about removing the peened over bits before pulling the bearing, it'll pull everything nice and straight when it exits.

You can try to re-fit the bearing by heating the cover...... don't forget to secure the race with a couple of light punch marks.

piet

 

[Jugs_S]

made up this special tool

1 bolt 2 nuts. Machined down one nut to fit inside the bearing outer ring with the bearing guts removed. cut machined nut now ring into 3 segments . I hold them in with a drop of grease till I screw in the bolt. Which holds them out against the inner ID of the ring under the lip. Then wind down the second nut on to the compression tube.

Jugs_S  

 

[Dellortoman]

My local bearing supplier didn't have a NKI 20/16 on the shelf, but can get one overnight. I don't expect the new bearing will have the oil groove that Clem mentioned, but I don't think there's an oil drain port in the boss for the crankshaft bearing anyway. 

Still don't have the old bearing out of the primary case yet. It'll have to wait until later in the week when I have some time to make a puller. I had in mind something similar to what Will made, but hadn't quite sorted a final design. Thanks for the photos Will.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Paul LeClair]

Hi Cam

rightly or wrongly I have developed a habit of stuffing the outrigger bearing with high quality synthetic grease any time I have the primary case off, no problems so far on either the 79 1200 (outrigger bearing in case) or 84 RGS (outrigger bearing in external fixture within primary) other than the one time on the RGS when I forgot to put the outrigger bearing fixture back on at all.............which was immediately evident as soon as I started the bike ....oops, but no harm done

Paul LeClair

 

[Dellortoman]

Well, it was easy enough to get the bearing out of the primary case. Took about half an hour, including 20 mins to make a puller and 5 minutes to heat the case up with a heat gun. Once the case was nice and warm, the bearing pulled out quite easily. Thanks for the inspiration for the puller Will. I modified your design slightly because I left the roller cage in.

Some photos attached. In one of 'em you can see there's a roller missing from the cage. The missing roller is broken into in a few pieces. You can see where a chunk of roller put a little ding in the bottom of the bearing housing. The loose roller must have been what was making the clattering noise.

Now I have to figure out a smart-arse way to get the inner ring off the end of the crankshaft. It's up against a shoulder so I can't get a puller behind it. Has anyone got any clever tricks? The obvious solution is to cut the ring with a grinder, but I'd rather avoid the possibility of getting metal filings and grinder abrasive everywhere.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[mcnicol]

Cam

I posted the same question a while ago. JLO suggested either welding a piece onto it and pulling it off with an impact puller, or carefully cutting with a Dremel. Can't say I was crazy about either option either (especially since I don't own a welder), but there it is.
You could always try a ball pein hammer and a cold chisel. Let me know how that works

Ken

 

[Dellortoman]

Thanks Ken

I'd rather not weld it because that would shrink it tighter onto the shaft. Might try a bit of local heat though.

If all else fails, I'll get the Dremel out.

Cam

 

[Dellortoman]

Hey Ken - The cold chisel worked a treat (after grinding almost all the way through on two sides)
Gave it a gentle tap with the chisel and it split open. Didn't touch the shaft with grinder or chisel.

Well, my cat was interested, even if nobody else is...

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Jugs_S]

Interesting

I have to tackle the same problem on the crank and was not looking forward to it, but now not so much worry. I like your idea of the mod to the puller design.

Jugs_S

 

[Dellortoman]

G'day Will

It was dead easy getting the inner ring off. I taped a plastic bag over the open primary case, with just the end of the crankshaft poking through a hole. That kept all the grinding dust out of the clutch and other bits. Just go carefully with the grinder and keep an eye on the inner ring as you're grinding it. You can tell when it starts to get thin because it will turn blue.

Once it was off, I gave the end of the shaft a couple of strokes with a file at the 3 points where it had been centre punched, just to remove the tight spots before pushing the new bearing ring on. The new one went on easily with gentle tapping from a soft faced hammer.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Dellortoman]

OK. New bearing in, made sure primary case was full of oil, and took it for a test ride. Engine sounded good at first, but after a few minutes it got clattery again. So it looks like it wasn't the outrigger bearing after all, athough that was buggered and needed replacing.

I'm now beginning to think it's something that happens as the bike warms up. Whether that's to do with thinning oil or changing clearance I dunno. Maybe the pistons are a bit sloppy in their bores. I dunno how many km this bike has done. It's got 65000 on the clock, but the speedo hasn't been working for gawd knows how long (until now). I'd guess it's done about 100,000km

I had an old car that chewed out a big end bearing a long time ago, it sounded very similar to the noise this 3C is making. But that was a plain shell-type bearing. What does a roller big end sound like when it's fooked?

Mystified
Cam

 

[mcnicol]

CAm

I did in a big end on my Yamaha XS1 (big end, not main). As the bearing collapses, mechanically insensitive (or desperate to get home) riders hear a loud "ping ping ping" noise that varies in frequency and intensity with engine revs, that's the big end hitting on the crankpin at the top and bottom of the stroke as the rod stops and changes direction. If it's bad enough you'll also hear the rod hitting the bottom of the cylinder liner, another "ping", different from the other one.
I bought the bike that way, incidentally, looked good but the engine was well and truly buggared (also had a bunch of fins busted off one side of the head). I fixed it and rode it all over eastern Australia, my first "big bike".

Main bearings are a lot harder to pin down. I've had several bikes that seem to have been running fine until I pulled the bottom end apart and noticed that the ball bearing mains (2 strokes) were totally buggared. I think general mechanical noises (not that there's any of those on Laverdas ) just get worse when the main bearings are collapsing, but I don't think you hear too much identifiable until you hear the loose bearings going "tink tink" as they fall to the bottom of the race when you shut down.

Ken

 

[Vince]

Cam the noise mine made with the bigend went away with the engine loaded and it was bleeding obvase at idle,here comes that word,KNOCK.There was a definate alloy shean in the oil from the bearing race eating itself.In the hope of finding what made the noise we ran it without the primary chain and the rocker box and the last port of call was the starter clutch.Maybe compression and leak down test,check the oil and maybe look at doing the runs with bits off.Its odd to be good cold and start when its hot,that must say something.

 

[Grant]

Some lateral thoughts:

Is the primary chain correctly tensioned?

Is the end float on the clutch drum correct (easy to lose a shim)?

Is the cam chain tensioned properly Cam?

I also had the crank ball bearing fail (at the cam tunnel) and it ran ok, all I could hear was the tink tink tink at very slow speeds where the balls were going over the top and clinking together on the other side.
I found the shrapnel of the bearing cage when I dropped the oil.

Can you describe the sound more comprehensively? Is the engine still ticking over or are you underway before it happens?

 

[Dellortoman]

Yep. All chains adjusted properly. In fact, I think it's the first time the primary chain has been adjusted since the bike left the factory!

Engine oil is still nice and clean and honey-coloured, with no metal sheen. So I don't think anything is grinding itself to bits inside the engine.

The sound is a regular clang like a little jackhammer inside the engine. It disappears almost completely when the throttle is opened or when it's shut off, so is mostly audible in that no-mans-land when the engine is neither driving or being driven. Seems to be coming from the primary drive side but I couldn't be positive about that.

The engine runs quietly (well, as quiet as a Laverda triple will run) with no primary chain.

On further reflection, I think it's somewhere in the primary drive. The fact that it changes as the drive train loads/unloads pretty much eliminates cam chain or top end, and points towards the drive train. I'm beginning to think it's the clutch drum. When there's no driving load on the clutch, the clutch drum spline can rattle against the teeth of the clutch plates. It's got a new set of kevlar clutch plates from Red, but I can't see that making any difference to how the clutch sounds. If I had some of those anti-rattle clutch springs, I'd give them a try.

The cush-drive rubbers feel quite solid - There's no movement between the primary drive sprocket and the clutch drum. Is it possible for the rubbers to be too hard? Maybe they've gone hard with age and are not cushioning the drive any more.

Does my description of the noise sound like clutch rattle? Can anyone describe what Laverda clutch rattle sounds like?

My brother took the bike for a ride a little while ago and he said he doesn't remember there being a noise like that last time he rode it, but that was a lot of years ago.

Maybe I should start a mysterious noise thread.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Grant]

There are needle roller bearings in the clutch drum itself. What are they like?

I had a really noisy triple once, all graunchy and a bit like you are describing, coming from the primary side. Turned out to be excessive end float on the clutch drum due to a missing shim (by DPO). This allowed the drum to move around under load from the primary chain.
Take a straight edge off the front primary sprocket to the drum to see if they are in line too.

No idea if hardened clutch rubbers would cause that. I guess at that age it has the riveted system so not easy to pop off for a look.

Does the noise change/go away if you pull the clutch in?