hello...

A mate of mine has just installed a 98RRW blade engine in his old pre-lit westy, and we're having a few teething problems...

Firstly the jetting. It's on filters so we know it needs re-jetting. Ideally we'd like to avoid needing to buy a dynojet kit so we've got some drills and stuff and are gonna first try and do what others have been successfully. We know we need to open out the main jets and block off the 'central air hole' or something, but the question is which hole is that (there are a few likely candidates).

Secondly, we've been out in it with the standard jetting just to test it (it only revs to 6000k though with the standard jetting), and we're getting some nasty hard to trace noises. We get a crisp metalic rattly noise that sounds just like cow bells/metallic maraccas or something when braking/downshifting and it seems to be getting worse and happens all the time just coasting. Never happens on power though. It also every now and again makes a horrible squealing sound like something rubbing in the engine. It's also started to occasionally be difficult to get back into first gear, and also we've noticed the neutral light wants to come on (flickery at first) when in gear and moving.

Sounds like a gremlin in the box which might be very nasty . Anybody got any ideas? Anybody got any spare bits we might need?

Cheers

Liam

[Edited on 3/9/03 by Liam]

I can't help with the jetting, as I'm not familliar with that set up.
Have you pulled the clutch cover off for a look? There may be something broken and out of place, causing the squealing.
Have you checked the wiring of the neutral light to eliminate that?
It sounds like it may be a box problem. I can't begin to imagine though what's going on. Do you have a manual for that engine? Is neutral position easy to get, or is it a pain? If it's dificult, I wonder if the detent spring has broken, and is jamming against rotating parts in the box, causing the squealing. I encountered a broken detent spring once, but it didn't result in squealing....much worse!
Are you sure the squealing's coming from the engine, and not a wheel bearing or something else (wind whistling through an earring!)?
I'd be interested to hear of your progress with the problem(s).

The trouble getting in 1st gear thing is normal blade behaviour, just bring the clutch up and back down again and it will slot in every time.
The clattering sounds a bit like it could be drive train / diff related. Mine does exactly this when on a neutral throttle, you get a lot of clattering from the diff which goes away when you accelerate. This is just normal behaviour on mine, but it might be worth checking all your diff bolts etc to make sure they are tight.

Chris

Nasty - noises, sounds familiar! Mine are due to a number of things. When the jetting was wrong it would not rev and there was a lot more clanging. Fixed the jetting and the clanging is reduced. The majority is due to the reverse box and general drive chain backlash.

Thanks for the suggestions guys - we had a good look and we're mostly sorted now!

Found which hole was the 'central air corrector' and blocked it. Engine runs like a dream. Who the hell needs an expensive dynojet kit and rolling road time when some drills, epoxy and knowledge will do fine.

Nasty noises were propshaft centre bearing as I thought it might be. Turns out the bearing is fine but one of its dust/cack seals had worked loose in its old home (a volvo btw) and was clattering about and being spun. Amazing something so simple could make all that noise. Easily fixed back on.

First gear - well that's the blade box for you so it seems. Bit of clutchery and it's no problem. All sorted.

As for the nuetral light I'm totally stumped. When we had prop off, sump off etc etc we noticed it had fixed itself. You can see the simple mechanism for it and we couldn't understand why it ever came permanently on - but didn't matter cos it was now working.

But...

As soon as everything is back together we notice the neutral light is permanently on again. Only thing we can relate it to is putting the sump on and putting some oil back in. Wierd. Cant see how it can be wiring as all the wiring for the neutral light is tucked away in the original bike loom - our modifications never needed to delve in that far so to speak. Totally stumped so I am. Any ideas anybody?

Cheers

Liam