Well what a day! I cleaned my slave cylinder and push rod and bled it this morning! Happy days! So I figured I'd venture out for a quick spin. First ride since bringing the bike back from Reps Caldicot a few weeks back after having them change the belts, oil and plugs etc.. So I set off earlier for a quick spin, starting off heading over to my local Tesco to fill her up. I left Tesco and suddenly the bike felt flat as hell! Then I noticed it had got much louder. I found somewhere to pull over and had a quick look about the bike. The heat sheild over the servo (disabled) was smoking and melting! I pulled it off and behind found a crack around one of the exhaust mount points, underneath there was a decent sized hole! You can't see the hole in this photo though. So to start off with, I thought that is obviously the problem and oh shit ££££! Now I need to find a replacement section of exhaust or manifold. But also whilst checking the bike I noticed that the air duct or outlet on the opposite side appeared to have a few specks of oil blown out onto it! I let the bike cool and limped back home, when I got off I checked again and noticed less oil specs, but none the less there were a few more! But I'm now thinking the worst! Although after the engine had cooled down I found whilst riding it back home the engine felt fine and no flat spot. I'm now wondering are the specks of oil something to do with the upset in exhaust back pressure caused by the crack, or is there something more sinister lurking? When I initially found the flat spot I did give a it a handful a few times to see if I could clear it, so maybe that also caused the oil issue? There is no oil leaking from the bike generally when it's parked up, it's been in the same spot in the bike safe for weeks and the floor is spotless. So I know at very least I need a new exhaust manifold, if anyone has one after replacing theirs over to the 70mm system I'd be very interested. And if anyone could shed some light on the oil I'd be super greatful. Cheers Paul
I don't think so. The cracks as you can see in the photo are very fine and normally I'd say yes I'd get it welded but there is a piece missing big enough to stick my little finger inside on the underside of the main crack. I've just ordered the middle section off ebay, the seller had a brand new section taken from a 1098s when new. So Thats all covered off, just need to work out where the oil came from :-/ Done some research and a few people say that if you top the oil up to the highest level it'll blow into the airbox and come out the breather pipe. When the bike was running flat I gave it a handful for quite a while so may have been caused by that as that is said to make oil enter the airbox etc... Going to have a proper check tomorrow, fairings off to see if I can find the source.
Paul, it might be worth checking if you can cut the manifold header section off where it joins the exhaust port on my 1098r maniflod system and have your manifood headers weldded on??. I am sure the only difference is the manifold header shape where the join the exhaust port, worth thinking about. Also it is an Akropovic system, so build quality is better ;-)
Hi Chris, I'm hoping the middle section will come apart from the other pipes as the replacement part came apart on the new bike. Crapping my pants now because I've just bought this below. Or have I misunderstood you? sorry still not quite out of panic mode and jumping to all sorts of conclusions, mostly sinister costly ones! :-/
Spoke to Royston at REPS, He doesn't seem to think I should be too concerned. He said that there a number of bikes that this sort of thing happens with on the exhausts, he wasn't surprised and didn't think anything of it. Given the low amount of oil being thrown up the side outlet vent is unlikely to be anything major, possible a seal or something. They want to take a proper look though for their own peace of mind as much as mine, so it's going back on Thursday and they are going to fit the new middle section of exhaust for me. Can't ask for much more really, very happy at their attitude towards this. Time will tell on what the oil issue is, although they will take the fairings off and have a look and sort what ever is causing it :-/
Hi Paul what bike and what year? I think I still have a brand new one in garage that came of my 2007 1098. Sitting there doing nothing, consider it yours. ( just cover postage)
Oh man I'm gutted but very very greatful for your kind offer @magic1 - The middle section I bought turned up today, it looks new or near to new but it looks kind of dull where as the cracked pipe on the bike was quite polished and tinted, I'm guessing someone got the elbow grease going on the original pipes and then the heat tinited it. The exhaust turned up too late yesterday to take it to Reps so I'm heading there tomorrow instead. My own fault for buying so quick :-/ Thank you so much magic1 top man
Well, the bike is back from the docs Clean bill of health, I might get the old middle section welded up it might come in handy as a spare at some point. All I need to do now is polish hell out of the new middle section as it looks bloody flat despite being new, autosol here I come! The oil that was blowing out onto the fairing was actually some stuff the garage had sprayed onto the rad to stop it corroding. The fairings have been off and the engine checked over properly, major relief!
wouldn bother welding the new one is highly unlikely to give any bother,save your money.........or send it to me in Nigeria
Hey guys, I want to replace the bolts holding the exhaust cover onto the bike, I think the previous owner switched them out at some point although the thread size hasn't been changed. Can anyone confirm which type I need please? I have a batch of the regular fairing bolts but they have too small a bolt head to really work on this cover. Type 1 (4mm shoulder height) Type 2 (5.5mm shouler height) Or Type 3 17mm (no shoulder)
Also does anyone have a definate solution for removing the burnt on soot off the frame? Carb cleaner seems to be moving it but I'm concerned it's going to eat the paint too! I haven't tried autoglym or T-cut yet but that was going to be my next port of call.
Believe it or not washing up liquid neat on a cloth gets a lot off shit off where the more expensive made for purpose stuff fails.
Cool thanks for that, I'll give it go. I did throw a load of muck off type fluid onto it neat but it dodn't touch it at all.
My mate had this all singing all dancing wheel cleaner supposed to get rid of grease and grime and the chain lube that gets spat on the rear wheel. I was scrubing for 10-15 mins and all it seemed to do was spread it about more. I squeezed some fairy washing up liquid on it left it for a few minutes then used a damp sponge and it just cut through the grime.
Cool I guess washing up liquid is a pretty fierce detergent, I think this carbon deposit might need something a little stronger but I'll defo give it a try, you never know. It's a bit like baby wet-wipes, we use them to clean our kid's and yet they are amazing at removing all kinds of stains off other things, I reckon one in every half dozen packs my wife buys ends up being pinched by me for the bike and garage
