CRACKING UP.
After Anglesey’s disastrous weekend, we all jumped on a plane to Majorca for a week’s holiday. All the family together, it was a good to escape, relax and forget about bikes for a while.
However, we didn’t know what was in store for us when we returned. We thought the only problem was to repair the clutch. We knew that the clutch basket had broken; we found that out at the circuit when we took off the engine casing. We also thought that the installation of Barnett clutch plates and springs may well have contributed to its failure. For some reason they jammed themselves under the prongs of the clutch basket, putting extra strain under the prongs during engine braking. This caused them to ‘lift’ the castle castings, cracking them and eventually breaking them off.
During the race, Ritchie stopped the bike because he heard a rattling sound and immediately thought it was the clutch – well you would, as it had been slipping from the start of the race and eventually lost all drive. Unfortunately, as we found out over last weekend it was much worse than that. It was a massive big end failure, and not just one, but three of them!!
What lies beneath all the oil, was all the bits that did the damage.
The engine sump filter had become blocked with clutch debris and starved the main big end bearings of oil. The main crankcase bearings were fine, but two of the Carrillo rods were so badly damaged, that the next journey they would be making would be to the tip.
The death of a crank, but the crankcase journals escaped saving the crankcase halves – luckily.
It’s uncanny that a year ago – almost to the day – we had a similar failure at Anglesey when the big end failed in practice. We can’t seem to exorcise the curse that seems to hound us every time we go there.
Looking a bit worse for wear. One of the shells had welded itself to the crank.
What do we do now then?
Well, the whole engine had to come apart, there was no option.
Looking at what we had available from engine parts saved from over the past 3 years, it was just about feasible to rebuild it.
We could just about make up a set of connecting rods – the Wiseco pistons and rings were all fine – we had a spare crank and a clutch basket, so we set about it.
Saturday morning, we dropped the engine out and stripped it completely. We found bits of metal everywhere and we were lucky that the whole engine hadn’t blown itself apart. By the end of the day – gets dark early now – everything was cleaned and ready for assembling with new and used parts; it was going to be a parts-bin special if ever there was one!
Ritchie had already ordered some bearing shells as we were going to replace them anyway, and of course we had the new Kawasaki clutch plates – no chances to be taken again. We can’t understand why a performance clutch could fail in such a way; it’s not as if a Barnett clutch is cheap either; we’ll be taking it up with them later.
Anyway, by Sunday night at around 9 o’clock we had the engine all bolted back together again and almost ready to go back in the frame. It doesn’t leave us much time to check things properly though, as we’ll be leaving for Cadwell Park on Thursday night after work. We’re going to have to give it a bit of a run – all being well – before we leave and then run it in properly during practice on Friday morning. It’s going to be fingers crossed that’s for sure.
Stop Press!! Monday night, midnight and a bit blurry-eyed, but the engine is in the frame.
This year has been just as hard – if not harder – as last year and with the latest engine failure, it’s not surprising we’re feeling a bit fed up. Our luck runs through our fingers like sand, we just can’t seem to hold on to it.
Well, if it holds up this weekend we’ll be very grateful that’s for sure, and it will be just the boost that Ritchie needs right now with just two rounds left.
We’ll see how it goes.
Bernie Thornton. TEAM 71
