Of out for a quick blast to clear the cobwebs and it lost a bit of power then a bit more, then ran on 3 cylinders and sounded a bit knocky. Then all sh*t broke loose!!!!!
There was so much oil that I called the police before the recovery truck . They came in 5 mins and blocked the road until the council came and dealt with it which took 15 mins. They couldn't chemically clean or wash the road because night fall was only a couple of hours away and its forecast -10°C and could'nt risk the chance of ice on a sweeping bend into a busy roundabout. That all took about 25 mins which was about the time it took to contact the RAC and get them out to me which on PAYG phone cost me about £10 in credit. Nearly three hours later I'm home and cant decide between a nice cup of tea or to drink way to much cheap cider.
I was travelling at about 70mph which is about 2700rpm and I had done about 8 miles so the engine was warmed up.
The only nice thing is I lost the phone somewhere between the breakdown spot and where I took a piss behind a bush about 100m away. What's nice about that I hear you giggle quietly to yourself. Well at that point it was pitch dark with no street lighting and the bike was loaded on the wagon AND another copper had arrived as I had been reported as an accident. Picture Me, a recovery man and a police man tip toeing up the grassy bank with torches looking for a phone. Which was found
I shall be performing a autopsy later today.
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Kubota Z482 which is plodding on with unnerving reliability. Three years so far.
1900 Diesel Bike being rebuilt with better clutch control.
Well, most of the connecting rod is surviving. I think you can fix it. In you come into trouble ask MacGyver for assistance
Damn! I pretty sure your bike made much more miles than anybody had expected. And now it broke dramatically like this. But for me this engine failure has nothing to do with your radical build. Hope you can pick up a cheap spare engine soon!
It was a blackhawk helicopter shooting a new self guided bullet at a target. Big oil companies were afraid you were getting to close to coming up with a sensable fuel efficient, less fuel using, product.
Just been dismantling the Dnepr Diesel with the intention of scrapping it or storing the parts for the next project.
The cause of the epic fail that visited me about a month ago has been found. It'/s simple when I found it. The oil pump is driven from a smooth pulley on the back side of the toothed timing belt and because the timing belt was not at correct tension had started slipping. My fault for not checking the tension and also my fault for not replacing the belt as a matter of course before fitting the engine to the bike.
The bottom pully is the crank, the middle is the drive to the oil pump and the top one is the injection pump.
It also crosses my mind that this might be why the vacuum assist clutch was no where near as effective as it used to be in the last 3 or 4 thousand miles. The vacuum pump is also driven off the same shaft and the lack of vacuum assist could have been caused by the same slippage. I have had the vacuum pump apart several times in the preceding months looking for the fault but didn't think to check the tension of the timing belt.
Really unusual for that engine to do That though eh? Certainly looks like a bullet hole 
that is one big let go with a well ventilated crank case, will be interesting what the findings are.