Pete, you may be right. I have looked through the manual and have found nothing that would be the right sized bearing.

Upgrade time . I keep the workshop bench clean(ish) but now, as we are in the process to move home to a new city, it is time to invest in a new bench for a very clear work area.....

Alternatively, it just may have been there all along.

Back inthe mid 90's we raced in the Triumph Speed Triple challenge, although the bikes were supposed to be completely standard, it was worth pulling the motors apart and rebuilding them very carefully. Gains of up to 5 bhp could be made.

We took delivery of a boxed pair and immediately dropped the engines out and stripped them apart, they had not been started since they left the factory.

Removing the sumps from both bikes revealed small particles of alloy, small particles of steel and twists of swarf. This shrapnel would have been in a road bike until it's first service, happily floating around the sump. You never know!

I don't dabble inside the engine (probably a good job) but as the bit you've shown isn't broken, how could it have come off anything in the bike?

That's not a cocky question (in case it sounds that way). I'm just trying to picture how that could come off some bearing, and not still be attached to whatever shaft/spindle/thing it was on?

Magnet probably picked it up off the bench during assembly and then did it's job keeping it in place. Some mechanic at the factory who'd been assembling mopeds the day before probably spent an hour going, "Where the hell did that bearing race go? It was right here. I swear it was."

It looks like it didn't go wondering around in the engine. Way too pristine.

Edited February 21, 201016 yr by Dan Williams

I don't actually see it coming from me or my bench. I know it isn't operation room clean but i do know every thing (!!!!!) that is on it... and there were no bearing cages on the bench. The drain plug was clean last time i changed the oil and it went back in clean.

Hmmmmm.

So it could be a "factory" part !!!

Ralphy

Edited February 21, 201016 yr by NZRalphy

Don't ya just love a mystery?

So it could be a "factory" part !!!

Ralphy

Did you tick the box for optional extras ?

It does look like unobtainium.

Buddy of mine was mad at James Cameron for using unobtainium in Avatar until I explained that I've seen a couple of on-set photos of Cameron in an MSR jersey. Obviously one of us so the reference to the old dirt bike magazine mentions of unobtainium (or nonexistium) in factory bikes is easy to explain.