When to rebuild motor? 600sx

I

IgoFast

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My 1999 Yamaha Vmax 600 Sx has almost 10,000 miles on it and I was wondering if I should put new pistons and rings in it just as PM . I did a compression test and it is about 125-130 psi per cylinder cold, that seems good to me.
The sled was pritty babied before I got it at 8000 miles. It still has the original clutch, and track.
What do you guys think? Rebuild? or just keep running it untill it actually wears out.
thanks
 
yes it's time, your over do for rings, pistons may be at min spec also,do a search on piston rings you'll get the idea,lots to read about

compression test tells nothing about rings...search
 
you should be good to go another 10,000 miles with it..no reason to rebuild.Push it to it's limits.There is a dealership somewhere I read has a Yamaha 2 stroke sled,not sure of the model..but they are documenting and keeping miles on it to see how long the motor will go for.I think it said they were up to 30,000 miles already a while back...not bad for a Yamaha.I will try and find that article somewhere,but ran across by fluke earlier in the year.
 
While it is true that a leak down test is the best way to tell if it needs a rebuild, doing a simple compression test will tell you if it really needs to be rebuilt.

I say with that kind of pressure per cylinder that you can probably run it a lot more before rebuilding it.

If it runs good I wouldn't worry about letting the rebuild go another season. If at the end of the season power goes down, and it shows less psi per cylinder, then I would rebuild it.

I am more amazed that it has the original track. Yamaha put some crappy yokohama tracks on their sleds until they went to camoplasts (rip saws and such) in the 2000's.

My yokohama original low lug track on my 97 venture 600 was shot when i got the sled last fall. It had like 6000 miles on it. It has a early 2000's skidoo camoplast on it now and that is in a lot better shape.
 
bluemonster1 said:
you should be good to go another 10,000 miles with it..no reason to rebuild.Push it to it's limits.
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blue shame on you, you know better then that with all the posting thats been done over the years!,rings don't last for ever,he's going to have a ton of blow by and skirt wear at that mileage.

guy's were talking rings here and checking piston skirt wear,not total rebuilt.
 
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That's good mileage on orig equipment. I had 2200 on my 97 when I ran into the piston pin problem. Like other said pull the head and check things out. Cheaper to catch a problem now.
 
daman I didn't really mean it,just stating that there has been some high mileage motors around. 10,000 miles is really high for a sled and he has been lucky.Of course things are going to be worn down.Seems like Igofast takes good care of his sled and not even a re build yet.You can ride the sled longer and wait for it to break down or of course you can rebuild the top end to be more reliable.

I know..I know daman...please forgive me...... :oops: :hide:
 
daman said:
he's going to have a ton of blow by and skirt wear at that mileage.
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I respectfully disagree. IMO, mileage is not a good indicator for ring service and again IMO, the recommended interval is for inspection, not necassarily a condemnation of the rings. Lots to read here about guys doing first time PM rering well beyond 10k and finding pistons/cylinders within specs. IMO - any excessive blow-by would have stuck a ring or worse by now.

Not trying to start an arguement and I realize my opinion doesn't follow Yamaha's recommendations, just answering his question with my $.02.

Of course the only way to measure clearances is to disassemble so while it's apart one would be silly to not rering it. But tearing into it during the season and perhaps finding all within spec when he could wait until the off season is the primary purpose of my reply.
 
snomofo said:
I respectfully disagree. IMO, mileage is not a good indicator for ring service and again IMO, the recommended interval is for inspection, not necassarily a condemnation of the rings. Lots to read here about guys doing first time PM rering well beyond 10k and finding pistons/cylinders within specs. IMO - any excessive blow-by would have stuck a ring or worse by now.

Not trying to start an arguement and I realize my opinion doesn't follow Yamaha's recommendations, just answering his question with my $.02.

Of course the only way to measure clearances is to disassemble so while it's apart one would be silly to not rering it. But tearing into it during the season and perhaps finding all within spec when he could wait until the off season is the primary purpose of my reply.
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Nope no problems here...search piston rings.
 
I have the same sled and am now approaching 10,000 miles myslef. I switched to Klotz oil just after the break-in period on the sled when it was new and have about the same compression across all the cylinders as yours. I did the head gasket mod but used a new custom thickness gasket from Cometic, did the silencer and air box mods as well. I definitely have not riden this sled lightly and the motor has held up well. I used a bore scope to look the cylinders over at the start of this season to see if I had any issues. Cyliners look great as well as the wash on the pistons. I took the carbs and reeds off to look at the piston skirts and I did not see any issues other than normal markings for a high mileage engine. I am going to run mine like I always have until it dies just to see how far it will go and how it performs over time. If it blows it blows and it does not owe me a thing.
 
would like to to keep us up to date there |Mills.My SXR600 has a little over 7000 miles and still going strong,and I push that sled really hard.I am actually trying to see if I can blow it up..lol..it just won't do it.I was thinking of opening up this summer to do top end..probably still will.
 
i dont know i have a friend, that bought his srx brand new and he has gone 12000 miles and still no rebuild, comp is still almost the same as new, and this year he finally had a powervalve pull through, and he drives it hard and puts it away wet, so with that said, i would watch compresion or cylinder leak down and when that gets below spec. its time for a rebuild, im just not a fan of the miles/time way, a lot of unnessesary rebuilds (just an example)i had a motor years ago that would every now and then smoke and everybody i would talk to would ask the miles and i would tell them 25000 and they would say O it time for a top end so i tore it down and checked everything i could at the time and it was in spec. but low end so i rebuilt it, i put 1200 miles on it and same thing every now and then smoke, so i tore it down again checked spec it was in spec. but low end so i disassbled every thing and found that one bushing that the machine shop had checked the first time was out of spec and causeing the whole problem which would have save me two rebuilds, if it wouldnt have been all about miles and more about fixing an intermitant odd problem! live and learn! i tore it a part and reassembled a dealer machine shop bored cylinders and did head work!
 
Wow!

A conservative in the dead swimmer's Senate seat, Air America bankrupt, Socialized medicine dead, CFR overturned by SCOTUS...

...and no1chevy and I agreeing!

What a week!

Hope my week of sledding in Feburary goes half as well.

It's gonna be a good year!
 
thanks for the help guys, I think I will pull it apart this summer and at least re ring it, That way I will know what I have. I didnt pay a dime for this sled so I suppose I could spend some cash and freshin it up a little. Im kinda suprised its lasted as long as it has, It been run on ARCTIC BLUE since it was new. When I got it I switched it over to Yamalube.
 
Make sure to check pistons also wile in there, measure up 15mm from piston skirt then mic dia on piston to see if it's within tolerance.
 
fwiw, Arctic blue is apparently the same oil as yamalube. So If I were you I would switch back and save $$.

I run arctic blue in my 97 600 venture, and all my sleds except the 600VES ( and not in my RAVE doos I had). It is a good oil, but I wouldn't use it on a PV or VES sled. It will gunk up power valves quicker than it should.
 
I think people get carried away with the re-ringing personally.If I had done mine at the 3,000 mile interval I would have had to to it at the end of the first,second and third year I owned it.Yes I did buy it new.As it stands now I have a sled that has close to 14,000 miles on it and never been torn down.Yes it could scatter tomorrow,but WTF the sled is worth basically nothing now even though it still runs good and looks pretty decent.So bottom line is that I've saved the price of 4 to 5 re-ring jobs and it still runs pretty good.JMHO.

PS This sled has had the crap rode out of it since it came off the trailer from the dealership.Nothing special for breakin period either.Just rode it like I stole it.
 
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