Routine maintenance (LC4 HOWDID)

[Tseta]

Well, it seems that a bit more than a year and 10,000km’s later, I’ve come a long way from this. Or what do you think, has the simple oil change and valve clearance check gone a bit too far?





Where does this part go?





Kudos to Laramie for his excellent LC4 engine removal guide.

Now, I’ve enjoyed reading (and looking at the pictures) about other engine rebuilds, Makazica’s Top end fun&games comes to mind as the most recent. Therefore, I will be updating this thread as I dig deeper into the engine.

Cheers,

Tseta

[makazica]

[wrk2surf]

check your bypass piston for smooth operation, rear cam chain guide wear, decomp pin wear, oil pump wear, intake and exhaust rocker bearings and waterpump shaft wear. A OEM gasket kit is good as it has EVERYTHING.

some things off the top of my head from my rebuild..

[laramie LC4]

oh no, im having painful flash backs!!!!


why are you tearing it apart? just because? or did something happen? or has this winter been a little too long?

also, what are your plans. ive been speaking to some VERY smart people lately about how to build this engine and things you should focus on. they have my head a spinnin' with possibilities. it aint cheap, but fun never is.....

actually had me considering selling my "bling-ed" out wr450f just to fund the operation. since then, more rational thoughts have prevailed but i sure do luv me an LC4 engine and chassis.

laramie

[Colemanfu]

Cool. I always wanted to see inside one. Pix lots o pix.

[Tseta]

Makazica:

wrk2srf: Very good suggestions, most of those were on my to-do list already.

Laramie: Nothing catastrophic has happened with the engine. I’m doing this mostly for my peace of mind. I am not completely sure how total the teardown will be, but I’ll likely stop at the cylinder head. Additionally, the winter has gotten quite long already.

Colemanfu:

Cheers,

Tseta

[Tseta]

First order of business was getting rid of some leaky shafts. Of course I’m talking about the dreaded kickstarter/shift shaft leak. There are some pointers about this by Creeper in this thread. It sounded quite bad, last chance and all. However, I was committed pulling the seals out without splitting the cases.

It wasn’t easy, but the seals came off. Not a pretty sight, though.



Various hooks, picks, and screwdrivers were used.



Surprisingly, the smaller seal between the shift shaft and the kickstart shaft let go really easily. Perhaps this was the reason for the leak all along.



I chose to install a different type of seal for the kickstart shaft. Supposedly this will seal better.



Both the seals were driven home with a suitable size pipe.



Hopefully this is the end of leaky shafts for my engine.

Stay tuned & Cheers,

Tseta

[bmwktmbill]

Tseta,
Thank you for the pictures, they are so much better than the Workshop Manual...Haha.

Better check out the starter and the drive. I have to rebuild mine so I'm hoping you go first.
BTW,anyone got a flywheel puller they will lend out?? You can PM me and not spoil this thread.
bill

[Tseta]

Next up was taking a peek inside the clutch housing. There has been plenty of talk about checking the crankshaft seal located within this housing. I thought that the seal in my engine was due for a replacement.

Removing the cover was simple enough. I punched the removed bolts through some cardboard to make sure I don’t mix them up. The ones with the red circle had a copper washer under the bolt heads.



The cover lifted off easily enough and the gasket remained intact on the engine side. The clutch looked ok. However, I didn’t take anything more off. The oil pumps will have to wait for another time.



The actual seal is located right beside the oil sight glass, inside the cover.



Removing the seal was much easier in this case, as there was no shaft in the way. A seal puller tool was carefully used to pry the old seal out, and the new seal was carefully tapped in place.



The cover was put in place and the bolts (with new copper washers) were tightened to 8Nm, in a criss-cross pattern.

Next up will probably be the waterpump and the camshaft area (follower bearings and such).

Cheers,

Tseta

[makazica]

Originally Posted by laramie LC4

also, what are your plans. ive been speaking to some VERY smart people lately about how to build this engine and things you should focus on. they have my head a spinnin' with possibilities. it aint cheap, but fun never is.....

Tell us more......

Frickin excellent third post Tseta!
Was dreading doing that seal on the shift shaft but now I seen you do it....

Will be following!!

[Tseta]

Originally Posted by makazica

Was dreading doing that seal on the shift shaft but now I seen you do it...

You really have to be careful no to mess up the seal housing in the engine case or the actual shaft. There is not a lot of room there to wiggle a hook or a puller in. I found out that the single most helpful thing in removing these seals was to heat up the area with a hot air gun. The aluminum will expand slightly to release its grip on the seal.

Good luck,

Tseta

[Tseta]

So, tonight I continued the rebuild with fixing the leaking countershaft sprocket seal. I thought that it might need replacement, especially since the O-ring came out looking like this:



Once again, Creeper has already written a great guide on this. However, I used a different trick for removing the seal. I threaded a sharp sheetmetal screw through the seal body, and leveraged the seal off against the shaft, using pliers:



A new o-ring, tap the new seal into place and Bob’s your uncle.



And then I worked on the water pump. LC4 Pilot has done a thorough write-up on the subject. Nothing really to add to it. This was completely new territory to me, but the rebuild went without issues.





No turning back now…

-Tseta

[wrk2surf]

Theres a little wear on that counter spacer .. hows the wear on the pump shaft.. speaking of the pump my buddy is finishing up some stainless shafts and is drawing up a new larger billet impeller and spacer for some extra flow..

[Tseta]

The wear on the countershaft sprocket spacer is very minor, more like some slight discoloration. The same with the waterpump shaft.

To my (untrained) eye, it looked like the waterpump shaft is made by turning, then heat treating (hardening) and finally grinding the bearing and shaft seats. Is corrosion of this shaft a real problem / is stainless really required? Mine had no rust on it.

-T

Edit: Forgot to add that I also checked the oil bypass valve and spring. No pictures, though. The spring measured 24.2mm with the service limit being 23.5mm. The piston was clean and smooth in the bore.

[wrk2surf]

he doesnt want to mess with hardening and has the SS stock...it seems to be just hardened on the end of the shaft.. but will make a larger key for cam side.. he will have a kit made in the next month or so with the shaft bearings seals and clip.. then the larger version following