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My Friend Was / Is Upset


pmk
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Not my OSSA MAr, but my friends.  The bike he bought a while back, advertised as restored needing nothing has been one hack after another.  To late to complain to the guy, and the seller was not honest in how he described and displayed the motorcycle.

It was a long distance sale, so between emails, phone calls and videos, the bike was bought and shipped.  Suffice to say the seller, that did the work should not handle tools and has no real regard for quality.

Along with many issues, the most recent occurred last week.  While getting the jetting dialed in, the engine lost power and began rattling.  My first comment when told about this on the phone was he seized it.  My friend said no, he knew seized and it was not that.

He brought the OSSA to my house last week.  It had not seized.  Fired it up, and lightly rode once around the house.  Agreed it was lame in power, but not sure why.  I did grab a handful of throttle while in neutral.  She wound up then began gurgling and died.  A new spark plug and it ran for a moment but died.  Would not restart.

Checked fuel, ensured carb jet had not fallen out.  Disconnected kill switch entirely.  Checked for spark, tough to see but there.

Nothing appeared wrong.  My first thought was the resistor spark plug cap had failed.  Not sure why it had one, but swapped on another plug cap.  No change.  Since my OSSA is apart waiting on parts, we installed my coil.  Still the same.  Just to verify, we even installed my known good carb.  No change.

The truly odd thing was it acted like it had seized.  While trying to fire it, there was odd poofs out the exhaust, and even poofs out the carb.

It got late, I told my friend, unwrap the cobby black electrical tape job the seller did to the wire harness.  See if there is a short.  Other than that pull the flywheel and install the stator from his other MAR that we have the engine torn down, making it an easy swap.  Since the skidplate needs to off to remove the side cover

I awoke the next morning, called him, said do not unwrap the wires, pull the flywheel.  I suggested the key had sheared.

He removed the ignition side cover, then pulled the flywheel.  What a mess.  The previus owner had issues where the flywheel had come loose.  Obvious attempted file repair.  Divits in the crank taper and flywheel taper from the previous key either shearing or was knocked out on install.  The issue we dealt with was all sections of key were there but sheared.

I took a road trip to his house, brought some tools.  With care and a steady hand, I blended out the raised points on both tapers.  We then lapped the tapers for a good fit.  While still damaged, and we know it, evything was cleaned and assembled.  The flywheel nut was installed with Loctite and torqued.  She fired up in two kicks and ran well. 

The guy that owns it is finding a crank, flywheel and other bits.  For now it is a good temporary repair that will last until we need to open the motor.  I did mention, if the guy that built the motor and bike was this much of a hack, we should remove the clutch cover and verify the cush drive and clutch are secure also.

What a week.  We expect it will easily last the summer, then it can be torn down.  So if buying a bike, never be surprised, good or bad.  If your MAR gets wonky on how it runs, consider the flywheel.

I do give credit to a post I read here a while back where an OSSA did not run correctly, turned out his was flywheel also. 

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It sounds like your friend bought the bike and had it running for a while.

Then decided to tune it up and maybe improve it some what ?

It sounds to me that in the process of changing the jets the tune was made worse.

You had it brought around to yours, whereupon you rode it around the yard, proving that it still ran okay but gave it a 'handful of revs'.

In the past on a new 1979 Montesa 247, I went through quite a few woodruff keys. 

Perhaps it was just an unfortunate failure of the key due to over revving, exactly what it's designed to do.

If the key had failed in the past then any previous owner would surely have replaced the broken key, smoothed over any rough divits and reassembled, just as you yourself have done ?

The key is far softer than the crank or flywheel and should, in theory, not cause too much damage.

Some pictures would be great.

I presume the rest of the bike is a shed of a restoration too ?

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3 hours ago, rotors7 said:

It sounds like your friend bought the bike and had it running for a while.

Then decided to tune it up and maybe improve it some what ?

It sounds to me that in the process of changing the jets the tune was made worse.

You had it brought around to yours, whereupon you rode it around the yard, proving that it still ran okay but gave it a 'handful of revs'.

In the past on a new 1979 Montesa 247, I went through quite a few woodruff keys. 

Perhaps it was just an unfortunate failure of the key due to over revving, exactly what it's designed to do.

If the key had failed in the past then any previous owner would surely have replaced the broken key, smoothed over any rough divits and reassembled, just as you yourself have done ?

The key is far softer than the crank or flywheel and should, in theory, not cause too much damage.

Some pictures would be great.

I presume the rest of the bike is a shed of a restoration too ?

Actually, no, he had no rides on the bike.  As for the jet change, the previous owner installed the wrong carb so an OKO was installed.

It became pretty obvious, the previous did not smooth anything, in fact his file marks to the key way are obvious and still did not allow the key to seat in the keyway.

Basically, the flywheel never seated on the taper.  It was also odd to see serious leakage along the center case gasket above the gearbox.  A quick check of the case screws made it apparent they were never fully tightened.  

Best assumption, the flywheel tapers never matched and the flywheel was not torqued to specs.

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2 hours ago, turbofurball said:

In British slang, when referring to a vehicle as a shed it means it's one step removed from the scrap heap ;)

Yes, if you ask my friend about the OSSA he would agree it was a shed of a restoration.  Regardless he realized the bike had been misrepresented by the previous owner.  

Now many months and dollars into it, he should get to start riding and enjoying it.  Hopefully.

Other than splitting the cases, and we are prepared to do that, he has transformed so much that was cobby workmanship into a very nice rider MAR.

I did happen upon a second MAR he was able to get reasonably priced.  So even though he will be losing a small bit of money in the end, his collection should have a nice fun rider MAR and a well done display MAR that will be very close if not as it came new in 72.

Other than a few quirky things, thes old OSSA machines are pretty basic.  Not perfect by comparing to a modern machine but still very simple.

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15 minutes ago, cleanorbust said:

Yes, the simplicity of old bikes can be a godsend.

But if I had a bike that had poofs emerging from the exhaust when I tried to start it, well, that would be an issue on a whole new level.

The bike had been running ok while the new carb was jetted.  Prior to this, it was started and idled, with an easy pass up and down the road.

The poof and failure to start was an obvious indicator of problems.

While troubleshooting, never did I expect the flywheel to have come so loose and move the igniton timing so far off to cause the poofs.

The blessing is ultimately that with the flywheel set well on the repaired taper, a replacement key installed, she fired up on two kicks and runs with snap and power.  Hoping the makeshift repair to the taper should hold until the engine needs to be torn down for other concerns.  At that time the crank and flywheel will be replaced with a rebuilt crank and undamaged flywheel.

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2 hours ago, oni nou said:

I know they are abit odd; but hiding in a trials bike engine, what's that about?.I hope that's not going to be happening world wide.....Imagine the disruptions that will cause at the World rounds.The FIM are probably dealing with it.

I hope so. Without being prejudiced, it's not something we should turn our backs on.

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Well I'm glad it's running okay now, sounds like you needed a tad of patience.

As has already been mentioned poofs out of the exhaust isn't too good, if there's some oily smoke it could hide a multitude of sins !

 

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Guessing Poofs is some other meaning for non USA English, I can only imagine what I have posted now to create such humor. 

OK I googled Poofs, yes, no doubt you all had good laugh over that one.

 

 

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2 hours ago, pmk said:

Guessing Poofs is some other meaning for non USA English, I can only imagine what I have posted now to create such humor. 

OK I googled Poofs, yes, no doubt you all had good laugh over that one.

 

 

You've just got to love our differences :)

Definitely a good chuckle !

 

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16 minutes ago, rotors7 said:

You've just got to love our differences :)

Definitely a good chuckle !

 

I do, some times.  Trust me, I laughed after I Googled it.  Yes, a very good chuckle.

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