640 ADV KabOOm ...

ok... I lived to tell the tale ...

The model shown is a 2002 Adventure with almost 80.000 kms on the clock.
I am dissapointed as hell by my mechanic amd I will expain the story in order for you guys to help me during this sad I must say situation. Sad because (1) I really love this bike and (2) because before 5.000 kms the engine had a major rebuild.
Rewind a couple of years ago and I am in a pond, sinking with my KTM ... Trying to empty the water from the engine did not work as it should be, so the hydraulic pressure damaged the conrod... This is when the party begun...
I tols my mechanic to be thorough with the engine, change whatever it should be changed and we proceeded to that end. New cam, new piston, new conrod, new conrod bearings the lot. Or so I thought... That rebuilt cost me back then 1500 Euros. For that amount of money I could have bought a used Adv here. With unknown problems probably, but still a lot of life left in it. At the time I thought to fix mine and have it for another good 80-100k ...

A couple of years and one race later, the bike shows excessive metal parts on the magnetic bolt. That was a week before the 24Hours race last November. I thought that it might be serious, as either a gear or a bearing is dying, but I thought that I had some life left in the engine and after the race I would be going for looking exactly what the problem is.
80 km into the race the bike starts making a whining noise which is audible through my ear plugs... :huh at the same time there is no difference if I pull the clutch or not. It seems to be constantly engaged. Now, this is a serious alarm but then again I am in the middle of nowhere and have to arrive at the bivouac. I contact the people at the bivouac, and inform them about my problem, so I hope when I arrive there they have the right spares to fix it.
For 40 kilometers it was a Navigational hell... Clutchless shifts, navigate and try not to get lost because I could not turn around. I thought of my mechanic more than one times and not in a good way if you know what I mean...

The bike dies at some point instantly, like somebody cut out the ignition. I have power, all the lights are ok, the engine turns but does not start... Race is over ...

After a week, the bike goes to another mechanic which I trust (I did not know him a couple of years ago...) and we open the engine...

This is what we found ...



This is the place where the transmission shaft goes. There should be a bearing there... :huh which the engine eat and spit it out everywhere...
The piston is badly damaged, so is the cam, the gears are probably dead and all the bearings should be changed.... Not only that, but the case is ground due to the eccentric shaft and it is badly damaged. So is the clutch side which ate the side engine cover. The rest is history...





The above shows the metallic paste that went everywhere...

Of course I contacted the mechanic who did the rebuilt but his answer was that it is not his fault, it is me and the places where I ride the bike. Ok ... whatever... I did not know that the manual suggests that I take my bike to work, without using the clutch too much and then home where I tap the saddle and go to sleep. He suggested that he will give me a used transmission in a very low price, what about the one thousand five hudred Euros MrPerfect ?
He said that he could fix the case by redoing the bearing case and putting a larger ring with another type of bearing, He also said that he has done it before and it works better that the KTM's solution. Now the question is why he did not do it in the first engine rebuilt .... but then again who am I to ask ? As an Engineer I keep asking myself why on earth would I want to keep the rotating parts that ate the heart out of a bearing the cam, the bearings... everything...) ... There is no reason IMHO so I am proceeding to that end. Only the cilynder is in good condition and that is the feeling through naked eye, not by measuring its circularity. So I am in need if a new engine. Which I will rebuilt, but still I need to find the whole thing.

I have found an engine. It is a 2003 LC4 supermoto, grey engine. The 2003 was the first HiFlow if I am not mistaken. I have heard a lot of problems for the first year HighFlows. Any help appreciated here. I should be able though to keep the black head but that is something in question at the moment.

a) The 2003 has a different ECU to the 2002 ? I think they changed the electrics as well. I dont want to get a wiring harness, an ECU and the lot cause the cost is already high ...
b) The transmission looks the same with the ADV when I am looking at the KTM spare but then again I am not sure. Any thoughts ? :huh
c) I am 99% sure it will popin the frame I have but just to make sure

the engine price is approximately 350 Euros... I will have to add the cost of the rebuild, the spare parts and everything... As I wanted to use the bike as a testbed for equipment I design and build, this is a huge drawback... Financially, because I am putting all the efforts to develop something and now I am without a bike to test it...
Well I have another one, an FE450 which hasnt gone yet to meet its creator but I do not know when exactly it will. And I have already created a NavTower for the Adv. Now I have to design one for the Berg and test the prototype Nav Roadbooks there ... Go figure.

Sorry for the long passage, I feel like talking to friends. here
D.

I'm sorry to hear about your bike. I'm not sure I've got the story correct though.

The engine was re-built at 5,000km, and you rode it for another 75,000km. You decide to ride a race and 80km's into the race, you hear something very wrong with the motor, high pitched whining that you could hear through your earplugs.
After hearing the noise and losing your clutch you ride it another 40km and it locks up?

When the motor was rebuilt, 75,000 km's ago, you hoped to get 80-100,000 km's out of it, but only got 75,000km's before a failure?

I think he means he had it rebuilt 5000 KM's ago - at 75000 KM's - and now it is at 80000 KM's.

I have very little motor expertise, so all I can offer is, "sorry to hear about this... I hope you can get it fixed."

Ah, that would make more sense.

That is correct,
It was serviced 5000kms ago and now went dead ... It is one of these thing that I hate, people do not accepting their mistakes. Not that I expected my Greek mechanic to pay for the engine, although in a utopia I would, but lets not go there .

In any case, I am looking to find a new engine, but as they do not get listed very often I got to find the answers to these questions ... :huh

I have a 2002 640 adv complete
what is the mortor worth ???
I would sell the whole bike for $3900 US
it has 02226.2 miles on it super clean and has 2007 Tank ,Fraing,seat,rear fender and side panles on it

You could buy it and have the motor shiped to you I could part out the rest for you ????

I have a right side case half sitting here from an 01 Adventure if you want to reconstruct your engine, it is in good shape and I'll give it to you for the cost of shipping ... This case is grey in color so you might want to paint it black to match the other half...

The 03 640 engine should also work fine in your frame also and it shouldn't be any less reliable... The only difference between the 03 and the 07 is the oil spray to the piston ... The 03 has one large piston spray jet that directs cooling oil to the underside of the piston as to where the 04-07 640s have 2 smaller jets that do the same...

640 Armageddon,

New engine that is correct, new mechanic, no more racing until you have learned to do your own mechanics.

We can help you set the machine up correctly and service it every 10K. If you are racing you need to rebuild some components every 20K.

After that it's tires and gas, sprockets and chain.
It's a process.

I raced for 25 years so I know some of the ropes.

One thing for sure...unless you are rich you don't race a broken machine.
Even the pros get off and walk.

Racing lesson number one for amateurs.
Racing gives your money and your girlfriend to someone else.

Your car is a piece of shit.
Your knees hurt.

If you want to go fast, slow down.
Buy good suspension.

bill

That post made my day
In the middle of this post I started thinking ''has he seen my car? has he seen me walking lately ? ''

I really want to do my own mechanics but the space I have is very limited. In fact there is none, I just move the car out of the garage place I am renting and put the bike there
The first thing that you said is in fact very true, I know think that given the chance again to think clear I would have parked the KTM and race the Berg which had a big overhaul (valves, springs, cam bearings, cam chain ... the normal things ). I am mechanically inclined but my luck of time is out of this world... I go to my everyday work for 10 hours then I come home and do more work so if I start putting time on the mechanics of the bike it will take me forever to finish it. I am still amazed that people here open and close their own bike's engines blindfolded

For the racing that is indeed correct, but then again with the races I am participating in at the moment it will take me 5-6 years to do 20k. I am fine with that

Baja Dad, Many thanks for the offer, I will trade you for some new Roadbooks when I have them (Did you get my mails ? )

The prices for the ADV in Greece can be seen here
http://www.car.gr/classifieds/bikes/?engine_size-to=%3C650&make=288&offer_type=sale&or=a&so=pr&variant=adventure
But on average with 300-400 Euros you can get the engine. The problem is that the supermotos where more than the enduros during their days so a supermoto engine is easier to find. I think they have something different in the transmission, still can found what it is ...

gunnerback , thanks for the offer again, The engine cases should be sold in pairs. They usually machine them when they are bolted together to get the bearing tolerance right, otherwise you end up with a shaft misalignment and another kaBoom is on the way...

I stay with that and from now on I will remember it for the rest of my life as this is the first engine destroyed in my hands

''One thing for sure...unless you are rich you don't race a broken machine.
Even the pros get off and walk.''

D.

I realize that the cases as well as the head/rocker cover are manufactured as matched sets but people have replaced as single components on both of these items and I have never heard of any issues yet with that...

The only way I would try it is if I had an extra case half sitting around...

The only other failure like yours that I am aware of is here: http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=551527


Good luck with whatever direction you go in...

Holy crap, that's quite the read. I wonder if there are any additional warning signs before you lose the clutch? I wonder if he'd shut it down and split the cases the first time he lost the clutch if it would have been a bearing swap instead of the trainwreck with a happy ending that it ended up being.

There are, in fact if you get to know the bike you will understand that something is wrong. The clutch did not engage properly. Unfortunately, if you ask a ''mechanic'' who's the main thought is to get your bike out on the road as soon as possible without any care of when it will die you have no luck. I told him more than one times that there is something wrong with the clutch but he kept saying that ''this is how they are'' . He kept telling me not to change valves in the berg because the people advising me to do so (after 360 hours) want to take my money, but he kept saying that the Berg will die because ''that is what they do'' ... I went to somebody else and the exhaust valves where like holy macaroni mushrooms... The decompressor spring was broken (but he had it fixed ) and many other stories which I will tell my grandkids in front of the fireplace
But to go back to if you notice the problem. there is the sound of the bike. Beleive me if you ride your bike you are the one who knows it better than anybody, the easy way would be to take the clutch cover out and check for eccentricity with a dial gauge. Then you know you know
It will all start with some whining because of the misalignment. This is when you stop and start investigating...


Now for the bearing change, it seems that thoughts differ. Some people think that the metallic paste that has gone everywhere will force you to change every single bearing (and I will agree with that, you dont want to close the engine and then after 5k another bearing fails...) and check carefully the rotating parts. I think that the engine case would not have been completely destroyed, I am amazed that the gearbox was grounding the case and all the teeth are still on the gears but I do not want to thing about it because the next thing you know is to tale the case up to the mechanic's garage and start talking French :huh

It has happened to me before with the Berg. Bike did not start, kicstarter would not go down, so I did not force it at all to start. I left it in the mountains, went home on foot, 4,5 hrs walk (the same mechanic was servicing it back then ) and went the next day to take it home by trailer. But it was not a race, the psycology is completely different, at least it was back then. Lesson learned and next time this happens I will gladly park the bike and watch the other competitors

Back to my questions, anybody at least know if the electronics are the same ? :huh

I'd have a hard time blaming somebody else for riding a bike that had metal showing on the drain magnet...come on, blame your mechanic?

Why in the world do people start an engine like that, let alone race it like that?


:ddog

Blame him because he dId not change the bearing. Why on Earths name you don't change a bearing which costs 50 Euros and can completely destroy the engine is something out of this world. I don't believe that a new bearing lasts 5000 k no matter what.
I was questioning the metal paste in the other thread, some suggested to race some did not.. I took my chances believing that it could not be such a large damage because we took care everything at the service.
Then it is the attitude after the damage has been done and it is the attitude that he sees mechanical problems , imagine that at one point we were discussing that no other parts could have been damaged because Ktm uses soft metals for the cases and the engine is used to recirculate that metal paste without any damages....

Of course I could have saved the day, but my question is 'why did all this sh@t happened? '

Sent from android phone

Just found out from KTM microfiches that the 2003 has a completely different wire harness, and ECU and God know what else...
Guess have to source 2002 to be ok :huh

The 2003 has the same stator and the same coil, just a different CDI and a different cam... The wires from the stator and pickup coil should plug directly into your 2002 harness... The 2003 SM appears to run the same cam as the 03 Adventure so your existing CDI should be good enough to do the job, meaning the swap should be a plug n play...

Problem is tha the existing CDI is not the same as the 2003 SM, the cable pluging system I mean.
Have a look below to see what I mean

That is the 2002 Adv



And that is the 2003 Supermoto



The CDI plugs are different. So I would have to buy his CDI as well. That would not be a problem. But then again I saw that the harness in the 2003 is different, it has a fuse box under the seat, and I have no idea how many other differences are there.
Would it be better to buy the loom as well ? :huh

Don't bother with his CDI, just use the one that is already on your bike...

Think about it and look at your above diagrams: Part #9 and part #10 on both engines are the same, and have the same plugs... Those plugs are where the replacement engine will tie into your electrical, no need to change any wiring, plugs or CDI....

You are indeed very very right. I owe you big time.
Check pm's

640 Armageddon,
Good for you!!!
What carbureter and exhaust/muffler system are you using?
bill