Clatter

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72degrees
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Re: Clatter

Post by 72degrees »

pedro wrote:I took the crank, which has some pretty serious wear on the big-end which went (front) up to Nourish engineering which is near me, The owner, Chris Bushell of Moto Giro fame and a huge Italian bike fan, immediate reaction, with absolutely nothing said by myself, was "the oil has broken down" he ran a Morini himself for five years, for the kind of use mine gets, he is suggesting Valvolene 20/50 mineral oil. That's two people suggesting that the problem is down to oil, I certainly won't be going back to Halfords oil myself. It looks like the crank will be going up to SEP engineering in the midlands for underwater welding to bring it back to standard. Conjures up a lovely picture of a bloke with welding gear and a snorkel in a swimming pool, perhaps it's just me.
I thought the cam follower breaking up and the resulting fragments was the real culprit? Naturally, that severe cam follower wear could be oil related. Voxan had trouble with the cam chain guides on the 1000 engine and Motul developed a special 15w-50 (Voxan) oil for them or they recommended Castrol 10w-60. They were both full synthetic though. I'm not quite sure why a mineral oil would be considered superior just because that's all you could get when Morinis were state of the art, but I do wonder if a -50 would be better than -40 in arduous conditions. I just changed the oil on the 350 'racer'. The Halfords 10w 40 semi-synthetic had done eight runs up Hartland, six round Curborough and one up Loton, as well as about 50 miles of 'running in' installed in the road 2C. Looked fine and I was encouraged to find not a trace of any nasty bits on the filter. Motul 15w-50 semi-synthetic has gone in now. I now see that an Amazon seller states: "Not compatible with Morini, Quad, MV Agusta F3, MV Agusta Brutale 675 - 800, Harley Davidson filters." - but I assume that means the 1200s - though no idea why - though I'd only be putting full synthetic in a Corsaro. I even put full synthetic Castrol Power 1 in the ER6n. Then I was used to changes after just a few hours on the KTM and Yamaha MX thumpers and a strict diet of Motul full synthetic.

Heh! An oil thread <opens popcorn> ;)
julianharty
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Re: Clatter

Post by julianharty »

Pedro,
I live in the South East (near High Wycombe) and while I don't generally strip engines these days I might be able to provide a second opinion. PM me if this would be any use. We can arrange to meet up. Do let me know if the bike is rideable (in which case you might come to me as I've a fairly complete workshop) else I can probably come to you.

Ciao

Julian
PS: I've got to track down an unusual noise in the Kanguro X3 I recently acquired. It sounds a bit like a Ducati dry clutch. I'd discovered the clutch plate nuts (the ones that hold the plates in) were quite loose (between 3 and 5 turns each) and been spending more time sorting out the electrics than riding it. It's back together so time for me to investigate the noise on it - good practice for helping you I hope :)
pedro
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Re: Clatter

Post by pedro »

Thanks for your offer Julian, bit late for that now though,the engine is in many pieces.
The cam follower certainly did break up, whether that caused the big end problem or not I don't know, whats strange to me is that the oil and filter were clean the first time I dropped it, only after I tried again to try to try and trace the noise and decided to go for a full stripdown the filter was full of metal.
The two people that have pointed the finger at oil breakdown are both hugely experienced motorcycle engineers, I'm not going to argue with them, they are looking at the damage. I know that on my old Velocettes wisdom says to use the oil the engine were designed to run on, semi or full synthetic would not be used, why would a Morini be different, OK it's a few years on and people do use semi synthetic successfully, I don't know what the quality of the Halfords oil is, or even who makes it for them, I also don't know the history of this engine or what it has been run on before my ownership, there are a lot of variables, what I do know is, is that Halfords 10/40 is a bit of a worry to me and I would certainly want something that included 50 as the higher figure, this engine is fairly comprehensively buggered although not irretrievably so, I am anxious that when its up and running again I get the oil right.
Meanwhile, tomorrow I will be off to Brands Hatch to give another Morini, a 350 this time, a hard time around the long circuit, last weekend was fun at the Mallory Bonanza.
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72degrees
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Re: Clatter

Post by 72degrees »

EVguru
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Re: Clatter

Post by EVguru »

The oils specified in a 1974 Owners Handbook in my possession are Castrol GTX (20w50) or Castrol RS FULL synthetic (with an extended service interval).

Late handbooks specify Sint Agip 2000 (a 10w40 semi-synthetic).

The big end shells are not a heavy duty bearing material, but a soft whitemetal, which tends to indicate that the bearing loadings are relatively light.

One of the advantages of synthetic oil is a high film strength, resistant of metal to metal contact. You don't get metal to metal contact on big end shells unless the hydrodynamic bearing has broken down.
Last edited by EVguru on 15 Jul 2017 18:26, edited 1 time in total.
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norbert
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Re: Clatter

Post by norbert »

Pedro, do you know how many km the engine has run after the last cleaning of the crank (if there ever have been one)?
The wear of the crank (big ends means connecting rod/crank, verdad?) is that much that a second minus size would not work? I supose that a rectified big end to the second minus size would not last that long as an original one because the hardened surface is not very deep. When you are using the motor on circuits maybe this is not the apropiate soluccion. But I guess a convential rectificacion would be much cheaper than this underwater welding. Anyhow I´d like to know more about the costs, results and your experience.

Only my first Tremezzo in the beginning of the 80ies had lived with 40 monograde mineral. In my second morinilife since 2000 I´d never run other things than multigrade mineral oil (fullfilling the demands of VW for example), now about 17 € for 5 l, intending to change it every 5000km. The 501 running in Rocinante came from spain, where the last years the motor had stood still and didn´t work (found out that the timing had been lost changing the belt). I did not open it, just flushed it with diesel.
After 45 000km the main bearing on the left side quit, all the balls looking like the moon. The crank also had to be rectificated. I guess the motor at that time had about 60 to 70 000km, 45 of them from me, no city traffic, rarely started for less than 40 km, a lot of long distance travelling, and about another 15-20thousand living in a Camel in Spain.
In 2011 after the rectificacion of the crank and a "new used" main bearing on the left side the motor went back in the bike (without changing the right side), since than some more 40 000km. Indeed I cannot complain about that motor and won´t do it.

I´m not sure wether the wear of the big end has to do with the broken followers. Do you have a picture of them? They obviosly broke after the first oilchange. I cannot imagine why, it´s the first time I hear of that damage.

Anyhow I bet there will be a lot of dirt in the crank.

good luck
norbert
harrymuffin
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Re: Clatter

Post by harrymuffin »

Oil in the 'old' days had high concentrations of ZDDP. This additive - zinc and phosphorus - have very high lubricosity on parts that have metal to metal contact such as flat tappet cam followers where hydrodynamic lubrication can not be established. Unfortunately this zinc phosphorus additive plays havoc with catalytic converters now found in all Glob Boxes and the concentrations have been reduced. Modern engines tend to have roller cam followers and those that don't are only expected to have life spans of about 70,000 miles or 7 years. The Yanks first started to complain about their cam followers and cams on classic high performance engines wearing out at very short running times some ten years ago and this reduction was not generally advertised.
You need an oil that has a concentration of around 1200ppm and if you look at the oil companies specification sheets you can look up what this concentration is. Oils that tend to have these high or once normal concentrations are now generally confined to oils used in engines for competition ; they will usually say 'not for road use' The oils I use are and I know have this concentration are Mobil 1 which is very expensive and Valvoline VR1 which comes in three types, fully synthetic 10-60, semi synthetic 10-60 and a mineral 20-50. which is a bit cheaper and what I generally use, though I tend to use this on a fill and use other oils with almost as high concentration for topping up which are 'Classic' oils in my old cars and I use the semi synthetic 10-60 in the Morinis with oil changes about every 5000miles, mainly because I have a full flow proper filtration system to stop crap build up in the crank pin. An Aermacchi I used to own had to have 3ltrs of Shell 100M every meeting which was much better than Castrol R which would glue the engine together. Their are other oils which are usually American and so hard to get hold of over here, even if you can afford them and you can add ZDDP as an additive, but too much can be as bad as too little.
All this has been documented on the internet and I only came to knew about it because of the job I had some fifteen years ago and with meeting oil company reps in connection with that job. I always used the oils used in ships engines when changing the oils on my cars at the time.
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72degrees
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Re: Clatter

Post by 72degrees »

I use Mobil 0w-40 in the Mk1 MX5 with good results including greatly improving the slight hydraulic tappet noise on a starting up on a winters day. That has done 126000 miles. I was thinking of trying Mobil1's motorcycle oil - perhaps for the next oil change on the 375. The 350 could probably do with a little more running in yet.
Haboola72
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Re: Clatter

Post by Haboola72 »

Spanish imports. A ready source of cheap , and usually flawed motorcycles.
I live there so they are even cheaper, the flaws , however, are the same. Patchy history ,and few authorised dealerships who lost interest early. As a result most bikes were run into the ground and maintained with scant knowledge ( pre internet ) in a harsh dusty climate that inhibited corrosion but played havoc with engine internals and cycle parts.
My cheap X3 Camel had stood for awhile , how long nobody knew. it hadn't been registered since 2003. It ran and compression was good.
I flushed it out with some multigrade mineral oil and ran it for about 400 kilometres. No crankshaft movement was detectable at this stage , although I noticed the bike was eager to buzz across the garage floor on it's centre stand when I took the revs up to 6000 with the timing light. On reflection , this might have indicated a main bearing problem!
I then drained the oil ( cleanish ) and replaced it with some 10/40 semi synthetic and took it for a 40 k round trip to the next village. On starting it for the journey home there was now an ominous rumble from the timing side.
Had the new oil something to do with this? Had it flushed out rubbish in the crank oil ways and ruined the bearing?
On draining the sump , the new oil was a glittering constellation of white metal bearing flakes. When I split the cases the bearing had melted around the edges but surprisingly the big end shells seemed ok.
The lesson here I suppose is to ignore provenance ( if any ) and strip the engine regardless. With a 501 engine this is especially true, with cracks appearing between valve seats and crankshaft bearings being difficult to obtain.
In my case I sent the crank to Ducati Developments Dortmund. The crank was tested and reconditioned, scuffing on the plain side journal was polished out , new shells were fitted with new con rod bolts and a new plain main bearing supplied. All for less than £400.
Ekkehard, who runs the shop is famous for wringing indecent amounts of power from 501 engines in 350 frames , he told me he was getting fed up with the issues experienced with these engines in a high state of tune and has now turned his attention to , yes, you've guessed it, Cagiva Elefants, with 650/750 Ducati V twin engines.

I'm sticking with the plain bearing. 42 bhp at 8000 rpm is plenty , and looked after, the engine will probably outlast me!
julianharty
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Re: Clatter

Post by julianharty »

pedro wrote:Thanks for your offer Julian, bit late for that now though,the engine is in many pieces.
The cam follower certainly did break up, whether that caused the big end problem or not I don't know, whats strange to me is that the oil and filter were clean the first time I dropped it, only after I tried again to try to try and trace the noise and decided to go for a full stripdown the filter was full of metal.
The two people that have pointed the finger at oil breakdown are both hugely experienced motorcycle engineers, I'm not going to argue with them, they are looking at the damage. I know that on my old Velocettes wisdom says to use the oil the engine were designed to run on, semi or full synthetic would not be used, why would a Morini be different, OK it's a few years on and people do use semi synthetic successfully, I don't know what the quality of the Halfords oil is, or even who makes it for them, I also don't know the history of this engine or what it has been run on before my ownership, there are a lot of variables, what I do know is, is that Halfords 10/40 is a bit of a worry to me and I would certainly want something that included 50 as the higher figure, this engine is fairly comprehensively buggered although not irretrievably so, I am anxious that when its up and running again I get the oil right.
Meanwhile, tomorrow I will be off to Brands Hatch to give another Morini, a 350 this time, a hard time around the long circuit, last weekend was fun at the Mallory Bonanza.
I'm sorry to learn the noises indicated such catastrophic problems. All the best with getting this bike back in fully working order.

BTW: I've read the article on oil selection from another response here. FWIW I think my 501CC engine is running with semi-synthetic and intend to put in semi-synthetic next time I change the oil. I'll probably use the same in the Kanguro-X3. Conversely for my older daughter's Honda 250CC single I need to swap to mineral oil to complete running in the rebore - after 1200 miles with semi-synthetic oil it's still using quite a bit of oil from what I can tell, I'd like to see whether it stops needing the oil topping up once I've run it on mineral oil for 500+ miles.
pedro
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Re: Clatter

Post by pedro »

Thanks chaps, this is all really interesting and useful stuff, I'm learning a lot.
My Ducati engine builder pal is full of tales of people who have insisted on putting semi or full synthetic in Ducati single race bikes instead of R and they have not lasted anytime at all, I personally can see no reason for this but have to take his word that it is true, he has no reason to be untruthful. I would have imagined that synthetic oils have to be better than mineral, your comments are very helpful in sorting things out.
As Aneurin Bevan was reported to have said "This is my truth, tell me yours"
MickeyMoto
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Re: Clatter

Post by MickeyMoto »

Anybody used Morris V twin oil? Recommended for Laverdas, but they have roller bearings.
harrymuffin
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Re: Clatter

Post by harrymuffin »

Oils obviously have a lower viscosity at elevated temperature, so when looking at your choice of oil you have to take into account the clearances of the plain bearings. Old engines tend to have wider clearance than modern engines hence the use of 0-30 SAE oils in modern engines. Also, with the recommended extended oil changes of car engines these days mineral oils would deteriorate too far before the oil change. As an aside, the oils used in big bore cross head marine engines of which the crankcase only oil tank contains around 10,000litres, the oil is never changed hopefully for the life expectancy of the ship - 30 years. The oils are mineral based and constantly being centrifuged and water washed and the oil companies conduct chemical analysis every 3 months to check that it is still up to original specification.
If you look at the viscosity index, which is in the specification data, then two values are given one at 20deg and the other at 90deg or there about. The lower viscosity index at the higher temperature the thinner the oil and oil pressure and greater possibility under racing conditions of breakdown, this is what you have to consider when choosing your oil. Current engines in Formula 1 have very tight clearance and so use syntectic oils but that have high viscosity indexes at operating temperature up to 130deg. The start up procedure are long winded as the engines have warmed up by space heaters to stop all the rubbing surfaces from wearing out. I run a Bristol engine and the main and big end clearance are about 0.002" - 0.0025 designed to run on straight thick mineral oils, which was changed every summer and winter for 30SAE and 40SAE oils with 2500miles max change periods.
I now run Valvoline VR1 10-60 semi because it was the highest viscosity index at the working temperature I could find and as the Morini has similar big end clearances use it it my Morinis as well, plus it has a high ZDDP content to stop my cams and very expensive cam followers from wearing out. I have an oil pressure gauge on my Morinis and the oil pressure when cold is around 80psi at 2000revs and when warm drops back to around 60psi and only varies by about 10psi throughout the rev range when thrashed. I never exceed 4000rpm until the oil pressure drops back and is up to operating temperature, I do the same on all my cars as well, and never race a cold engine as a lot of knob tossers do with their hats on back to front!
The thing about Castrol R, which I preferred not to use, is that castor based oils have a much higher viscosity index at high temperatures, so there is, in the old days of racing, less chance of film breakdown on the cams and followers compared to the straight oils, even when using ball and roller bearings. As I have already mentioned, Shell also produced a castor based oil which did not gum up the engine like Castrol and in cold weather, unless you were in the works DKW team with there space heaters to warm the engines up, have to push the bikes up and down the paddock with the plug out to try and free the engine up. The alternative was to heat the oil up to working temperature on a primus stove before putting it into the engine. The other disadvantage with using castor based oils is that castor oil and petrol react to produce a gum that would gum up the piston rings which is fine on a high maintenance racing engine, but not on your commuter Honda C90 or leave till weekends for a thrash Morini.
You pays yer money and takes yer chance.
harrymuffin
Posts: 292
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Location: west midlands

Re: Clatter

Post by harrymuffin »

Oils obviously have a lower viscosity at elevated temperature, so when looking at your choice of oil you have to take into account the clearances of the plain bearings. Old engines tend to have wider clearance than modern engines hence the use of 0-30 SAE oils in modern engines. Also, with the recommended extended oil changes of car engines these days mineral oils would deteriorate too far before the oil change. As an aside, the oils used in big bore cross head marine engines of which the crankcase only oil tank contains around 10,000litres, the oil is never changed hopefully for the life expectancy of the ship - 30 years. The oils are mineral based and constantly being centrifuged and water washed and the oil companies conduct chemical analysis every 3 months to check that it is still up to original specification.
If you look at the viscosity index, which is in the specification data, then two values are given one at 20deg and the other at 90deg or there about. The lower viscosity index at the higher temperature the thinner the oil and oil pressure and greater possibility under racing conditions of breakdown, this is what you have to consider when choosing your oil. Current engines in Formula 1 have very tight clearance and so use syntectic oils but that have high viscosity indexes at operating temperature up to 130deg. The start up procedure are long winded as the engines have warmed up by space heaters to stop all the rubbing surfaces from wearing out. I run a Bristol engine and the main and big end clearance are about 0.002" - 0.0025 designed to run on straight thick mineral oils, which was changed every summer and winter for 30SAE and 40SAE oils with 2500miles max change periods.
I now run Valvoline VR1 10-60 semi because it was the highest viscosity index at the working temperature I could find and as the Morini has similar big end clearances use it it my Morinis as well, plus it has a high ZDDP content to stop my cams and very expensive cam followers from wearing out. I have an oil pressure gauge on my Morinis and the oil pressure when cold is around 80psi at 2000revs and when warm drops back to around 60psi and only varies by about 10psi throughout the rev range when thrashed. I never exceed 4000rpm until the oil pressure drops back and is up to operating temperature, I do the same on all my cars as well, and never race a cold engine as a lot of knob tossers do with their hats on back to front!
The thing about Castrol R, which I preferred not to use, is that castor based oils have a much higher viscosity index at high temperatures, so there is, in the old days of racing, less chance of film breakdown on the cams and followers compared to the straight oils, even when using ball and roller bearings. As I have already mentioned, Shell also produced a castor based oil which did not gum up the engine like Castrol and in cold weather, unless you were in the works DKW team with there space heaters to warm the engines up, have to push the bikes up and down the paddock with the plug out to try and free the engine up. The alternative was to heat the oil up to working temperature on a primus stove before putting it into the engine. The other disadvantage with using castor based oils is that castor oil and petrol react to produce a gum that would gum up the piston rings which is fine on a high maintenance racing engine, but not on your commuter Honda C90 or leave till weekends for a thrash Morini.
You pays yer money and takes yer chance.
pedro
Posts: 311
Joined: 04 Nov 2010 21:14

Re: Clatter

Post by pedro »

Thank you Harry, I always enjoy your very informed posts, and think that I will be following your advice and going for the Valvoline, as both yourself and Nourish engineering have recommended that it would suit our engines and my usage well.

Norbert, I'm afraid that although I do know a couple of the bikes previous owners, I do not know if the engine has been apart before, and so I cannot know if the crank has been cleaned out previously, these engines are getting old now.
As far as the big end wear is concerned, it is pretty severe, that's the reason for the welding.
On the subject of severe wear, the followers are quite spectacularly bad, I will get them back from my friends workshop and attempt to post a photo.
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