Pulling the motor, anything to look out for?

[blueironranger]

Well, fired up the Viper for day 2 of the MN TY ride to let it warm up and heard it die 10 minutes later. Cycled the key and it barely turned over, dead battery! Boosted it with my truck and fired right up but wouldn’t charge on its own. Took the Phazer instead. Tore into my Viper this morning and the stator showed 0.0 ohms to ground, bad! Pulled the stator cover and the first thing I inspect is the starter gears, all perfect! Start checking out the stator and noticed the tops of two windings have a huge gouge out of top them damaging the windings. Rotate the motor and see a large chunk of metal embedded in the flywheel, roughly the size of a chipped tooth BUT mine are all good.
I’m assuming it had a previous repair and someone missed a chunk, no chunks came out when I changed the oil at 300 miles when I bought it or today when I drained it at 1400 miles. I’d really hate to spend 700$ on a new stator and flywheel to have another mystery chunk take it out again so I decided to pull the motor and inspect the pan area. It looks pretty straight forward but I’m wondering if there is anything easy to miss or tricks to pulling the motor. Looks like I need to remove the exhaust manifold, steering column, aluminum side braces, and pyramid bars and lift it straight up. Does the chassis need to be supported underneath with all the upper bracing removed?

 

[blueironranger]

Ended up not pulling the motor but dropped the pan in the chassis and fished various magnets around the pan until the last 3 passes came back with the magnet clean. I’d say they missed a few pieces, or they didn’t even bother looking in the pan. I have 1,200 of my own miles on the sled so it went a long time before a piece worked it’s way up to the stator. Inspected the screens with a mirror also to make sure no pieces were stuck.

 

[Doc Harley]

God.....wonder what the prior failure was?

 

[cannondale27]

View attachment 137994 Ended up not pulling the motor but dropped the pan in the chassis and fished various magnets around the pan until the last 3 passes came back with the magnet clean. I’d say they missed a few pieces, or they didn’t even bother looking in the pan. I have 1,200 of my own miles on the sled so it went a long time before a piece worked it’s way up to the stator. Inspected the screens with a mirror also to make sure no pieces were stuck.

Sorry to hear this but glad you know did the job right. Is a lot of them running around without a proper starter gear replacement and pieces floating around in pan. It's also been shown that pieces can make thier way into Scavenger pump.

 

[blueironranger]

God.....wonder what the prior failure was?

The bigger pieces are definitely teeth off and Intermediate gear, the pieces looked identical to those. I’m sure it was a kickback damage repair, My sled came from the Factory Yamaha demo fleet. Not sure if they repair them or had a dealer nearby repair it.

 

[edc]

Could stick a couple of big rare earth magnets to the out side of the oil pan to hold pieces from floating around inside pan. or glue a magnet to the oil drain plug. Where would be the best place to put magnets to catch any filings or gear teeth???

 

[cannondale27]

Could stick a couple of big rare earth magnets to the out side of the oil pan to hold pieces from floating around inside pan. or glue a magnet to the oil drain plug. Where would be the best place to put magnets to catch any filings or gear teeth???

Right to sidecover left side. Is only chance of catching them before they make it to the flywheel and stator. Personally I would not bother since if gear goes only thing to do is tow it and start digging in. Do not even crank it over. You will know the dreaded grind sound when you hear it.