Ok, so I did it.
I f@$#%d up my rear Rod bearing. :censor :censor :censor :censor.
Did last week my oil service. I guess i didn't pay attention, left an airpocket in the drain hose and didn't primed the pump. Fired it up. Light didn't went of. Turned of the bike. Let it sit for a minute. Fired it up again. 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, klack, klack, klack........ . Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. :angry :angry :angry

Took the bike to my machinist and he confirmed my diagnosis. :cry1
So, now I not only have a bike that's not running. I will also have to clean up my garage so i can take it apart and fix the mess.:headbang :headbang

Yeah, I know. Next time :rtfm

So the next few days /weeks no :tour .

Oh well.

The good thing is i will save lotsa lotsa money for gas and tires, which i can spent on some fancy stuff. :banadanc

Maybe.

Anyway. I :luvsport

Are you sure the strange noise isn't your rings digging into the cylinders. Thats what happened to mine when I rode it around for 5 miles without any oil flow. Makes a squeeking noise I'm guessing.

:( Wow... that sucks! Maybe I WON"T try to learn how to change my own oil... :frownthre

____________________________________

http://xlforum.net/photopost/data/500/thumbs/Cat_Burglar.jpg 2006 Sportster 1200 Custom, Vivid Black
Taxes paid: Ness Big Sucker, Samson BigGuns3 Slashers, HONK HONK Stebel AirHorn :burnout
Cat's Litter Box (http://xlforum.net/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=8623)
http://xlforum.net/photopost/data/500/Let_Me_Out.jpg Let me OUT! I wanna go ride my Sporty!
Got a cat the other day. Had to swerve to get it, but I got it.

:( Wow... that sucks! Maybe I WON"T try to learn how to change my own oil...

:yikes what she said :yikes

NO F'N WAY a single air pocket in a single oil change is going to cause a crank/bearing problem.


I SAY BULL F'N SHYTE!

For the record, I've NEVER "primed" the oil system in any of my EVOs, that's over 100k miles of oil changes (and most of them used to be with dino juice every 3k miles).

Now for the record, I do prime the oil filter. And I do usually crank the motor once or twice with the petcock and enrichener still closed so it doesn't start right away. The oil light usually goes out from cranking, before the motor even starts. But if it starts before the light goes out it takes a second or two.

Let's say it cavitated and didn't move any oil, and it was running for a 30 seconds... I STILL don't think that ALONE is enough to spin a bearing. I mean, it's dangerous and I don't want to test it, but jeeez.

Were you watching the oil light? Did it go out?

God I hope it is something else.

Kev

:yikes what she said :yikes
Chuck get's called a "she" a lot, but I think it's cause Clarinet, somehow looks like Claire at a glance...

K

Took the stethoscope to locate the noise. Found it at the lower rear cylinder. When I took it to my machinist, i fired it up right on the trailer. Took him just a second to figure it out. He told me he has at least a dozen of those repairs during the year.
Off course i would be more than happy if it's just the ring's or something else.
Anyway. Need to take the whole enchilada apart. Wether i like it or not.

Chuck get's called a "she" a lot, but I think it's cause Clarinet, somehow looks like Claire at a glance...

K

uhhgg so so sorry cead mile pardons ........

Chuck get's called a "she" a lot, but I think it's cause Clarinet, somehow looks like Claire at a glance...

K

My wifes name is Clarine. Just short a 't' and of course, cat seems somehow synonomus with La Femme.

Chuck get's called a "she" a lot, but I think it's cause Clarinet, somehow looks like Claire at a glance...

K

:roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack

<sigh> I need to change my "handle" I guess.

http://ca.geocities.com/ricahansen/weblog/male_cat.gif

How about

Mr Clarinetcat ?

i wont make that mistake again

... of course, cat seems somehow synonomus with La Femme.
Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cat) - Cat:Slang
A person, especially a man.
A player or devotee of jazz music.

Common error... no biggie :) Now back to your regularly scheduled thread...
:band

ahh now i see it Clarinet_cat. from now on its non gender specific replies.

:yikes

NO F'N WAY a single air pocket in a single oil change is going to cause a crank/bearing problem.


I SAY BULL F'N SHYTE!

For the record, I've NEVER "primed" the oil system in any of my EVOs, that's over 100k miles of oil changes (and most of them used to be with dino juice every 3k miles).

Now for the record, I do prime the oil filter. And I do usually crank the motor once or twice with the petcock and enrichener still closed so it doesn't start right away. The oil light usually goes out from cranking, before the motor even starts. But if it starts before the light goes out it takes a second or two.

Let's say it cavitated and didn't move any oil, and it was running for a 30 seconds... I STILL don't think that ALONE is enough to spin a bearing. I mean, it's dangerous and I don't want to test it, but jeeez.

Were you watching the oil light? Did it go out?

God I hope it is something else.

Kev

I'm gonna say BULL F'N SHYTE with ya Kev. There's no way you'd throw a bearing under those conditions. A few seconds idling?? Not unless the bike was sitting for a year and all the residual oil was drained from the bearings or your rings are gone and you have a lot of gas mixed with your oil making the oil VERY thin.
Now if you replaced the filter without putting some new oil in it causing an airlock and then rode it a few miles HOPING the oil light would go out, that's another story.

I've had the problem of the oil light not going out also and I've unhooked the drain hose to let out the air, but I've only seen oil come out. How long do you take the hose off anyway? And does a good amount of oil come out before the air bubble does?

Just trying to clear the air for people who are now scared sh!tless about changing their oil now. Maybe even me...:D

I'm with Kev and The Predator on this one. You can "spin" a bearing on a metric bike cause they use plain bearings, a sporty uses rollers. I think it would have to run a while to hurt a roller enough to Klack.

sure its just not the lifters? I mean when I start mine up in the winter to keep everything flowing it will clack like hell for almost a minute till the lifters pump up. I think you should try that first. you have a way of putting a audio file on here?

I've had the problem of the oil light not going out also and I've unhooked the drain hose to let out the air, but I've only seen oil come out. How long do you take the hose off anyway? And does a good amount of oil come out before the air bubble does?

Just trying to clear the air for people who are now scared sh!tless about changing their oil now. Maybe even me...:D
On mine when this happens I pull the sender out of the oil pump let the air out till a bit of oil comes out put it back in and fire it up.And yes I fill the filter first

After priming filter, let about an ounce of oil out of drain hose. Like Kev, I crank it a few seconds before before I light it up. That oil light should have already gone out or will right as it starts...keep revs to minimum. No reason to be scared of changing your own oil-just follow the basics.

There is no way 5 minutes of no oil killed your rod bearings. If they are truly dead, it's a coincidence, but I seriously doubt it. If it's from no oil presssure, chances are it's lifters, cams, rockers arms, something in the valve train, and it's just noisy, not damaged. I'm with Kev on this one. Don't jump to conclusions.

--Chris

:roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack :roflblack

<sigh> I need to change my "handle" I guess.

http://ca.geocities.com/ricahansen/weblog/male_cat.gif


Or change your avatar, what GUY likes cats :doh :p

Aww screw it, just get in touch with your feminine side. Oughta go with all that Arlen Ness chrome :p :p :bananinj ;)

besides, even if it wasn't pumping, there is almost a quart left in the sump that would be splashing around, till the sump pump got rid of it.

Sounds more like a stuck lifter. It would take quite a while to ruin the rod bearings.

if it is a rod bearing, from what you've said , it's a coincidence.. I have seen one fail And it was from a MFG defect, was a service bulliten after the fact. But that was in the 80's

A TV progam over here drained all the oil from a car and then ran it round a race track just to see what would happen, it took eight minutes before it failed and that was on a track, I can not believe not "burping the baby" could cause this.

Steve

wouldnt leaving the oil cap off during the first initial start be better then trying to get an air pocket out of the lowest point in the oil system (drain hose)...the air pocket is going to seek that highest point in the system(fill hole)...does that sound right im no expert

wouldnt leaving the oil cap off during the first initial start be better then trying to get an air pocket out of the lowest point in the oil system (drain hose)...the air pocket is going to seek that highest point in the system(fill hole)...does that sound right im no expert

Maybe but I don't think so. I'm applying my water pump knowledge here so may not be directly applicable but...If the pump is cavitated you need a point down-pump to flush the air out of.

I agree with all the others who have already said no way an oil change caused a thrown rod bearing. That would take a lot of heat and I have to believe someting else would fail first.

Boy, have you guys got me confused. I have only changed my 06 Sporty one time at 1000 miles. I got the service manual out and looked at the 4 hoses running to and from the tank.

The "drain oil hose", #9 on page 3-104 goes from the tank to the drain plug, which I removed to drain the oil out of the tank. This line does not go to the engine, an air bubble in this line will have no effect on oil circulation. If it did have an air bubble in it, the worst it can do is lower the oil level in the tank a minute amount when it finally makes its way back up the tube to the tank. Is this the line you guys are bleeding?

Next there is a "vent oil hose", #7, I assume vent means vapor recovery, but I cannot tell if it hooks up to transmission or crankcase. I assume transmission since the crankcase is vented through the air cleaner. Again, this hose would not have any effect at start up, unless it is specifically pressurized somehow.

Then there is the "feed oil hose", # 8. But to bleed any air out of it, you would have to take of the pipes and side cover off. Nobody has mentioned doing that.

The last hose is the "return oil hose", which I assume is under some mild pressure from the scavanger pump, and any air bubble would be pushed into the tank without concern.

Now I will admit that I have never worked on a Harley pump, but I have worked on others. So here is my thinking:

The oil is gravity feed, which means even if an air bubble does get into the feed line and cannot escape back up to the tank, the weight of the oil above it will push the air bubble down the tube as soon as the pump starts to spin. So now we have the combination of the pump creating a vacum in the oil line, and the gravity pushing the oil down. That sounds like a self priming pump to me.

From my experience, there will be no way the pump can cavitate beyond the first few revolutons when it is just going to slow. Unless, of course, the pump is worn out to begin with, or you are running really thick gear oil, or it is below freezing and your good old dino oil is now more like syrup, or the feed line is clogged. But these are far more serious problems than we see at a basic oil change. It may take a few revolutions of the pump to get a good bite on the oil and push out what little air there may be, but any more than that and you have got other serious problems.

But since we did not drain the feed line, it should still be full of oil, not air. I would also guess that the oil can't leak past a good pump, because even if it did, it then must go throught the rest of the oil ports, and if it could do that the oil would always drain from the tank into the engine when it sat overnight. I understand that the oil viscosity creates some seal between the gerotor and the pump housing, but that oil does not drain away from the pump.

Every oil pump I have ever worked on had more than enough pressure to push out a silly little air bubble. In fact, oil pumps are capable of making a really big puddle of oil really fast. I have seen a few of those puddles over the years, and I couldn't get the engine shut off soon enough.

So now that I have got my typing practice in the day, which lines are you bleeding?

Oh, I forgot the original question. I have to agree whatever is making the noise was about to fail anyway. All piston engines run for 10 to 30 seconds without oil pressure at start up, unless you have some pre-pressurization system.

hmmmm...mebbe Im missing something here:
1) Drain oil
2) remove filter
3) clean up mess
4) drink beer
5) add oil
6) clean up mess
7) drink beer
8) replace drain tube
9) add filter
10) add oil
11) remove drain plug till clean oil flows
12) top off oil
13) replace drain tube
14) clean up mess
15) drink beer
16) top off oil again
...... back to the couch cuz Oprah is on.

Yea - my buddy Jack Daniels has sure been a mixed blessing in my garage.

Probably just a lifter that leaked down.

In 19 years of changing oil on my Sportster, all I've ever done is dump the oil, fill the new filter with oil, fill the tank with new oil.

I even rebuilt the oil pump and just turned the motor over a few times to prime the pump.

I think it's highly unlikely a bubble in the oil line would cause a problem after a oil change.

I'm very interested how the shop determined a bad "rear rod bearing". 99% of the time you lose a rod bearing it will be the front. The rear has two bearings where the front has one. I have never seen a wasted rear bearing unless fragments from the front bearing got into the rears.
Also, since the rod bearings are all on a common crank pin, how do you determine which bearing is making noise?
I'm all for looking at the lifters as a source for the noise.
Get the oil lines all full of oil, no air, and run it for a few minutes. I got a feeling the noise will just mysteriously go away.:D :smoke :tour
Ted

so--what was the final outcome? any one know?

After many oil changes, I read the book. Oil pump cavitation "might" occur :wonderlan. So I started using a vaccum system {LiquiVac} to pull the oil out of the tank from the top and not "mess" with draining it.

Would like to know what he ever found out ???

As I'm sitting here reading about your oil experience, I was sort of thinking I've never heard of anything like that before. I have to agree with with Kevin M. The oil in your tank is feeding the oil pump by gravity, i can see no reason why the oil pump would be without available oil from the get go.

Besides unless the bike has set for months, before you changed the oil, there should be enough residue on the bearing serfaces to get it fired up and pumping fresh oil to everyplace that needs oil.

I used to ride with Sierra... and I haven't ridden with him or heard from him since right around the Indio trip. Where you at Mark!!!

Lets RIIIIIIIDE...

I ran my 72 out of oil at 75 mph. I scored the front cylinder and wrecked the rings and piston but my lower end is still good



maybe I just got very lucky