Here is my tale of woe and numpty home mechanics... I replaced the sprag on my 998s in the summer as it was truly knackered. I changes the flange and driven gear too. I installed the flywheel and torqued it up to 270 N/mm and put the case back on and it made this weird bearing type noise. I ran it for a few minutes and it wasn't happy. I pulled the cover and found that the thin washer behind the needle roller bearing hadn't seated right and was all mangled. I replaced the washer and put it all back together. It didn't want to start, so I pulled the ignition pick up and it had some debris on it, which I cleaned up. I replaced the spark plugs and it ran. Whether it's because I was riding other bikes during the 6 weeks of pain that this took, but when I rode it, the bike seemed sluggish. I got it up to temperature where the fans kicked in and all seems OK. I may be paranoid that I have fubar-ed something in the engine. Any thoughts please? I appreciate that there are a lot of failure points on these bikes! Is 270 N/mm the right torque for the testastretta 2002 engine? Could the ignition pick up still be giving problems? Could I have bolloxed it so that the starter gears are still engaged? It's looking as though I may have to pull the alternator cover off for the third time...more oil and coolant on the garage floor... joy. Thanks.
I know it’s not what you want to hear but, for peace of mind, I think you might have to take the cover off and check everything is correctly assembled. Before you do that however, perhaps take it for a spin and see if it is sluggish or whether it is your paranoia telling you that something is not right.
Thanks - I was fearing that - but I did take it for a run this morning (damp) and it seemed to run quite well, getting better the further I went. It was definitely fluffy around 4 to 5k rpm at first, but this seemed much better by the time I got back. So I think it's a combination of: Paranoia returning to a normal level Clearing out any fuel build up from all the starting problems when the sprag went Fresh petrol (it wasn't that old) Maybe some mechanical bedding in? Not sure if the driven gear has to bed into the needle roller. I'm SORNing it now, so will see how it looks in the Spring - had I not felt an improvement, it would have been a winter project. Thankfully not, as my garage is an icewell.
