Worried about reliability next year

D

destey

Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Messages
319
Age
45
Location
Vermont
Bought my 99srx this past season, put on 600 miles but in that time had a pv pullthru, stator melt, driveshaft snap, recoil broke, all the bearings were shot and had to be replaced. It left me stranded twice (thankful for cell phones).

I plan on taking the skid out and putting in new bearings again (I get cheap from work). I was thinking doing these jobs just because it seems like the sled had not been maintained and every engineering mishap from yamaha is coming out now that the sled has passed 9000 miles:

* send stator to someone like ricky stator to be tested/improved. The replacement I bought was off a 98 vmax, so not sure how long it'll last.

* piston rings

* lower end rebuild??

I would rather not to the lower end rebuild if I don't have to. But with the miles on the sled and how it seems everything under the sun is going wrong with it, will my motor just seize up one day?
 

I would strongly reccommend for you to go through the entire sled. You should get a copy of the service manual and go through the sled section by section: front suspension, steering, rear suspesion, clutches, chaincase, engine, etc. until you have checked everything on the sled against the manual. Take your time over the warm months to go through all the details. For example, tak out th rear suspension, disassemble it, clean it, check each part, particularly the front "W" arm for cracks, then reassemble it. You can add improvements to it such as additional grease fittings. If you go through the entire sled, you can catch problems and greatly improve its reliability.

There is no reason why that sled can't be extremely reliable. My 2000 SRX has never let me down in 13,000 miles of riding.

As far as the engine goes, if it needs to have the top end refreshed, you should also diassemble, inspect and rebuild the bottom end. It is more time but not much additional money for the seals and gaskets. No sense in investing the time and money to rebuild the top end unless the bottom end is in top shape.
 
Don't feel bad.Nothing bugs me more than a couple of buddies who bumble into a sled for some sort of swingin' deal from somewhere,ride the thing for 3 years,do nothing to it except shove it in the corner of the garage for the summer then jump on it and ride all winter again and again and sell it for pretty much what they paid.WTF!I pay a premium for a decent? SRX and then it starts.I'm not making this up.Multiple powervalve problems(cables and valves),chewed belts till I sorted that out,exhaust donuts,chaincase bearing blew up,spun a bearing on the jackshaft(new jackshaft required),brake pads,front shock on the skid broke and gouged the track and the spring got piled up underneath for a little extra broken stuff,primary grenaded and blew a hole in the bellypan+clutch guard+shook the motor till 2 pipes jumped off and ate the new donuts+sent shrapnel into the secondary,bolt for the dogbone torque arm backed out and snagged the secondary(yes that's 2 secondary clutches),hit a big rock that broke the hyfax and by the time I limped back to the truck the track burnt off part of the skid rail,the handle bars came off in my hands smokin' down the trail when the mounting plate
separated from the post an I'm sure there is things I forgot.I'm losing friends because they're scared I might slip the cursed shriveled monkey paw in their garage.Tons of fun riding but goddamn it can be frustrating and costly.So there you go,misery loves company.
 
I myself cant understand how some people just let things go. I knew a kid back in highschool that rode a kx250 with a flat rear tire, loose exhaust, one rear shock, no kick start, no kill switch, and the throttle would stick at times. Oh and no brakes. No Joke! Talk about a death trap!

Desty do what rx1jim said and you should be good to go. Sometimes these things take time to work the kinks out and sometimes once you rip into it, it just flows smooth.
 
SRX_700 said:
What compression do you have?
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Not sure right now but in december it was 120-123 in the three cyl. i'll check with a compression tester and post results

I would strongly reccommend for you to go through the entire sled. You should get a copy of the service manual and go through the sled section by section: front suspension, steering, rear suspesion, clutches, chaincase, engine, etc. until you have checked everything on the sled against the manual.

As far as the engine goes, if it needs to have the top end refreshed, you should also diassemble, inspect and rebuild the bottom end. It is more time but not much additional money for the seals and gaskets. No sense in investing the time and money to rebuild the top end unless the bottom end is in top shape.
Click to expand...

I think you're right about going through everything. I bought a ATV and it was just like this, stuff started going wrong. I stripped it down to the split crankcase halves and found enough along the way that afterwards I thought about how it would have gone wrong sooner or later. Its definitely easier to fix things while the sled is disassembled
 
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I feel better after hearing from the Tree Man and his problems.Remind me to never ride with you..EVER!!!!.....I am always busy,can't ride with you today ..lol
 
motorhead327 said:
I myself cant understand how some people just let things go. I knew a kid back in highschool that rode a kx250 with a flat rear tire, loose exhaust, one rear shock, no kick start, no kill switch, and the throttle would stick at times. Oh and no brakes. No Joke! Talk about a death trap!

Desty do what rx1jim said and you should be good to go. Sometimes these things take time to work the kinks out and sometimes once you rip into it, it just flows smooth.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I'm going through the brakes on a car I just bought and I can see they were neglected. Seems like few people these days keep up on maintenance.

Don't feel bad.Nothing bugs me more than a couple of buddies who bumble into a sled for some sort of swingin' deal from somewhere,ride the thing for 3 years,do nothing to it except shove it in the corner of the garage for the summer then jump on it and ride all winter again and again and sell it for pretty much what they paid.WTF!I pay a premium for a decent? SRX and then it starts.I'm not making this up.Multiple powervalve problems(cables and valves),chewed belts till I sorted that out,exhaust donuts,chaincase bearing blew up,spun a bearing on the jackshaft(new jackshaft required),brake pads,front shock on the skid broke and gouged the track and the spring got piled up underneath for a little extra broken stuff,primary grenaded and blew a hole in the bellypan+clutch guard+shook the motor till 2 pipes jumped off and ate the new donuts+sent shrapnel into the secondary,bolt for the dogbone torque arm backed out and snagged the secondary(yes that's 2 secondary clutches),hit a big rock that broke the hyfax and by the time I limped back to the truck the track burnt off part of the skid rail,the handle bars came off in my hands smokin' down the trail when the mounting plate
separated from the post an I'm sure there is things I forgot.I'm losing friends because they're scared I might slip the cursed shriveled monkey paw in their garage.Tons of fun riding but goddamn it can be frustrating and costly.So there you go,misery loves company.
Click to expand...

I think that's the hardest part, for those couple hours of fun there's so much $, work and effort put in to keep it going, plus the weather has to cooperate all for a couple of months at best. But I think if this effort is done upfront, go over everything and make sure its good, I'll just have to replace suspension bearings every year or two going forward. No worrying about engine seizing up or water pump failing or whatever other part is counting down towards failure.

thanks for the advice everyone. I'll tear it apart to the bottom end and put on new crank bearings and seals and everything else along the way
 
this is exactly why it sucks selling your sled that you maintain and invest in only to be chewed down to the same price you could buy a junk for!!! i plan on kkeeping mine now for a while i still have minor things to do but all in all i have 2 years invested into getting this thing near perfect...
 
If you take your time during the spring summer and fall months, you can make your SRX VERY reliable. The members of this site will gladly guide you through every aspect of inspection and rebuild of your sled. There is NO reason why your SRX can't be reliable, all it takes is going through the sled, putting everything in top shape and then maintaining it.
 
I think I'm going to sell it this fall. Its got 9000 miles on it and I did a search and the bottom end last 15k probably and mine likely wasn't fogged and it was stored outside. Its $1200 for a new crank or just about that much to put new bearings on that crank (plus sending it off somewhere to do the work). I see on ebay ads or cranks and bottom ends but they've all got miles on them and who knows if the owners fogged the motors they were in at the end of the season. I just can't get over how yamaha put a $200 bearing and a bunch of $140+ bearings. I'd rather split the case halves 2 or 3 times and put $100 total worth of bearings on than do it once over life of the sled where there's $1200 in bearings. The whole time i've owned this sled i've thought 'what were the engineers thinking?' other than power per cc, this sled has let me down. i've never owned anything that had problems like this, half the time out something catastrophic happens. first time out for the season the recoil broke. then first trip out the skid bearings felt like they were shot so i replaced them no biggie happens to every sled, then not much power so found a pv pulled thru. Then wire rub through Next trip out the stator melted (didn't have handwarmers on or anything). Then i got to ride probably 4 times then the driveshaft snapped. sorry just frustrated. If i'm going to go through the sled and make it reliable then I want at least 5 years out of it and not worry about an impending $1200 crank that's going to go sometime in the next 3 years. I figure I can put it in the ad all this work that was done this past season and that'll help it sell even with the high miles.
 
Don't blame Yamaha and the engineering team for the problems you have had. You can't expect a sled that has not been maintained to last no matter what manufacturer built it. It sounds like the sled you bought has 9000 tough miles with little or no maintenance. Not the sled's fault. May 94 Vmax4 has 10,000 trouble free miles, my 2000 SRX now has 13,000 trouble free miles and my 03 RX-1 has 8000 trouble free miles. The sleds get fully serviced every year with specific periodic maintenance during the season.
 
ive seen so many srx's with over 10k still going!!! if you take care of it theres no telling how long the crank will last you dont know it will fail! its your call but seems to me youve already inveted some money in the most important parts a little effort this summer and you may have a reliable sled, or you could sell it and buy another sled you know nothing about
 
My big thing is the cost of the bearings on the crank. Not spending $400 on some second hand abused crank, so that leaves $1200 on a new one. no thanks. everytime i think of that blue sled my blood pressure starts to rise.
 
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