Super Tenere Sad Story

[Scoobynut]

I'm not trying to dispute OP's circumstance here, but regarding the carboned-up Albuquerque bike, that just seems fanciful to me. All of my fuel-injected bikes and cars have been left to idle for fairly long periods from time to time with no ill effect. I mean the fuel metering on a modern FI engine is so precise --is it not? -- that it's not like the old carb days where raw fuel is just being dumped into the cylinders at idle. I do run FI cleaner through all my vehicles, maybe every other oil change, but still I'm just having a hard time believing that just idling and babying a modern fuel injected motor does it any even minor damage. Not that I baby mine really, but I don't bounce off the rev-limiter either.

I used to work with a guy who had a fuel-injected '91 Honda Accord. He would let it idle for a half hour in the winter before he drove it and whenever I rode with him, he was short-shifting before 1500 rpm, usually right around 1200 or so. I told him he was crazy to short shift a Honda 4-cyl. like that, but he just ignored me. The car had 330,000 miles on it at the time. He told me it was on the original clutch and the motor had never been opened, unless you count a timing belt every 100k miles. He had owned it since new. About 5 years later I ran into him and asked him whatever happened to his old Honda. He said his daughter totalled it at 400k miles.

 

[GrahamD]

Ok confuses as well but the dealer put in the effort that they thought was needed and there may be more to it they they have explained.

No point going over it. Every manufacturer makes a mistake occasionally. Every dealer smurfs up and I don't think the OP is doing anything particularly different to his bike than any of us.

Every time it happens though it's a bit paranoia inducing which is the main problem. But me, being an old fart, had to put up with lots of flakey mechanical devices over the years and all I can say is that the "valve grind and de coke" used to be a regular service item along with the engine re build every 100,000 miles on smaller cars.

Now carbon and hard starts freaks people out, People trade their house when the dish washer stops working.

I hope it is all sorted and that blaine finds an old mechanic somewhere that looks at the carbon and laughs in its face and just sorts it out.

I have had a few interesting times with "expert service technicians" over the years and had the chance to learn a lot trying to sort problems for them.

I have also been in the service side of things and learned why there is a culture of replace and replace until it works. It was in the electronic field but it was the same type of thing.

 

[imrubicon]

I dont clean mine LOL
I remember way back when .
I leaned forward to see something stuck in tmy bike.
I leaned forward and was way down ow when I head that wisp of skin leaving the top of my forehead.
Have not been that close to one since ::010::

 

[Checkswrecks]

Blaine, I wouldn't give up on the fuel idea. If you regularly use a station that doesn't carry the name of a big oil company, you generally get odd or auction lots of whatever is available. It'll be 91 if it says 91, but it may have no additives and it may have as much crap as somebody thinks they can dilute the fuel with.


You're near enough to the port that there is all sorts of fuel around. Even if it's a name brand that you use, we regularly see fuel cut or contaminated, both intentionally and unintentionally. Twenty years ago, two 737s at different airports took off when flight attendants became aware of strong gasoline smells in the lavatories. Leftover gas had been mistakenly dumped in the wrong place on the lav fluid cart. It had been intended to go into the waste what had been flushed from airplanes, not into the side with the fresh blue juice. I know of a piston engine DC-6 that got stranded on Alaska's North Slope a couple winters ago, when it got a shot of Jet fuel.


It may be worth having a lab look at a sample of fuel and also of what is being called carbon deposits. A good fuel/oil lab can tell what has been run through the engine, which is how a manufacturer can generally tell who uses regular in a vehicle that is specified to use super. More to the point, it can also tell if your station got a load of gasoline that had been contaminated with leftover motor oil, diesel, etc.


btw - even if you don't lug your engine, always running low revs does let deposits build.


Good luck with getting through this.

 

[offcamber]

Maybe I missed it, but did the dealer complete the work? is the bike back on the road? If so has there been any other issue with it since the rebuild??

 

[Blaine]

Maybe I missed it, but did the dealer complete the work? is the bike back on the road? If so has there been any other issue with it since the rebuild??

Yes...The work was done last fall.....It's been running perfect since then, but, not that many miles due to winter.

 

[klunsford]

Hey, they fixed it and you are back up and running. I say you are a winner anyway and they did do something... I have taken bikes into dealers and they just scratch their head and say "I don't know". And never do anything at all. I don't ever go back and find some else who can diagnose and fix it....

 

[sharealike]

Just ideas.

White left down pipe - catches more water from the front wheel than the right pipe. Turns to steam soon as it hits the ultra heated pipe and leaves the white or sometimes light brown deposit behind?

Engine Rebuild after fail to start and finding carbon build up - perhaps very rich mixture for 4,000 miles? Fact Yamaha signed off the work no problem without accusations of bad fuel or riding style says they probably knew what it might be and are saying the least they can get away with. Permanently rich mixture leads to oil dilution and carbon build up. Oil dilution is when so much unburned fuel passes the piston rings it reduces the quality of the oil. Find that in a new engine and you need to rebuild the whole unit from the bottom up. Problem is the fuel on the bores makes them wear (washes the oil off) so you lose compression. Add carbon and perhaps wet spark plugs to low compression and one day it will not start. Lets hope if it was this that they proved what caused the rich mixture or it will be the same again in another 4,000 miles.

 

[Scoobynut]

Just ideas.

White left down pipe - catches more water from the front wheel than the right pipe. Turns to steam soon as it hits the ultra heated pipe and leaves the white or sometimes light brown deposit behind?

Engine Rebuild after fail to start and finding carbon build up - perhaps very rich mixture for 4,000 miles? Fact Yamaha signed off the work no problem without accusations of bad fuel or riding style says they probably knew what it might be and are saying the least they can get away with. Permanently rich mixture leads to oil dilution and carbon build up. Oil dilution is when so much unburned fuel passes the piston rings it reduces the quality of the oil. Find that in a new engine and you need to rebuild the whole unit from the bottom up. Problem is the fuel on the bores makes them wear (washes the oil off) so you lose compression. Add carbon and perhaps wet spark plugs to low compression and one day it will not start. Lets hope if it was this that they proved what the caused the rich mixture or it will be the same again in another 4,000 miles.

Most feasible explanation I've heard so far.