engine teardown ?

stealther27

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Sep 15, 2009
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386
Age
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Location
Jefferson, WI
well due to this horrible winter, trails never opened by where I live. This offseason i had been planning on rebuilding the top end, a few weeks ago I ran the sled on my track stand and noticed an odd smell so shut it down and later on checked the coolant and noticed that i had lost some coolant according to full mark on the coolant tank. So removed the heads and saw a little coolant by the pistons in the middle cylinder and the cylinder on the clutch side. I decided since I had plenty of time so I removed the engine, took off the cylinders and pistons and used a shopvac to get down inside the cases to clean out any remaining coolant. Im not sure how much ( hoping not alot) of coolant got down in there and dont want anything to happen to the crank. So the other day I bought a harmonic balancer puller to remove the stator, but Im having some problems getting the three allen screw bolts out that hold the stator on. I managed to get one out, but the other two got stripped out of course, so I tried drilling them out. I drilled the head off of one, but didnt have luck with the last one. Has anyone had the same problem getting those bolts off? I took pictures but dont know how to post them yet, but the heads and cylinders looked pretty good two of the pistons it looked like had some scuff marks/ scratches on the sides, and also possibly a little blow by. So my ? is if you guys were in my place would you split the cases to inspect the crank, and what other things should I be looking for? Sorry for the long post, this is the first engine teardown for me.
 

It wouldn't be a bad idea to split the cases and change the crank seals as long as you have the engine out. It helps to heat those screws up before trying to remove them.
 
Doesn't help for this time but using a forged bit in a impact driver (the one you hit with a hammer) usually pops these screws right out. Just drill them out without damaging the threads and run a tap down them (use the right size). Seals do age so replacing is good idea. Check your crank both before you take it out and on the bench to see if there is too much play in any of the bearings. Any roughness is not good.
 
By the 3 allen head bolts I'm assuming you mean the ones holding the starter engaging cup bolted to the flywheel?If so then yeah those are a real pain to get out,I've stripped a few in my time even to the point where I had to take a standard sized allen wrench and hammer it in to what was left of the metric hole.A good snap with one of those impact drivers you use with a hammer like Ding said usually works,but if you try using heat be careful because your stator is under that flywheel and you don't want to mess that up.
 
Gotcha I'll remember that for next time. And yeah I had already ordered crank seals awhile back so looks like I'm gonna be changing those.
But just wanted to get opinions from some of you engine experts.
 
those 3 bolts have loc tite on them you have to heat them up with map gas, propane doesn't get hot enough,quick enough as you don't want to saturate the flywheel with heat. after you quick heat the heads, take a nice sharp cold chisel and lay it back at a angle on the edge of the head of bolt, a quick strike will loosen them right up and you can then remove with allen key.
 


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