Panic!!! sand in motor!!!!

[Wyatt]

I changed my oil today on my 450. This is the second oil change and it has 4.1 hrs on the motor. When I removed the the filter, I found sand in the oil!!! There was a noticable amount present, but it was not plugged with sand. I sat there puzzled as to how sand was inside of my motor. Then I realized what had happened. I had a bad crash on the bike at about 2.5hrs. The bike went down hard on the left side. I quickly removed the breather hose from the top of the valve cover and i found sand traces at the valve cover.

I removed the valve cover to inspect inside. There is no sand inside the valve cover except for a few grains near where the hose enters, but this is where it entered. I checked my valves while it was apart and all is in spec. Just from a visual inspection the cams do not look damaged. The bike runs great.

My concern:

Any amount of sand in an engine is a very bad thing......even a grain or two.

My brand new bike has been run with sand in the crankcase. How worried should I be? Should I have faith that the passageway from the vent led to the bottom of the crankcase where the oil was quickly picked up and cleaned by my oil filter?? Should I have faith that my SCOTT'S filter trapped all of the sand before it could do much damage in the 1+ hour that the bike ran after this?

or

Should I begin gathering money together to pay for a new engine as this one will shortly fail?

I have a sick feeling in my stomach.

[Satch0922]

dang !! I think I would have to take it apart and flush it out ...otherwise I would be worried everytime I rode it.

At least you will have piece of mind that the motor is clean and you can inspect it for damage while it's apart.

[biznet1]

I'll have nightmares for weeks now. I would rather it happen to my 70 year old mother's car. Just kidding! If it's still making power, after a good 2 or 3 flushings it is probably ok. I'm only guessing, but I think it would have taken some accelerated wear however. I'm curious to know what someone older and yz'r (..ha hm) would have to say about this one, in case it ever happens to me. God forbid!

[TeamEndo]

Satch is right, i'd tear it down too, as much as that sucks having only 4 hrs on the bike or you'll always wonder when or if its going to grenade on you. Maybe reroute the breather up to the airbox too, thats my next mod. I already rerouted it to the right side out of sight but still don't like the fact it vents below the rear brake lever and can suck stuff up. Kinda curious why they route them down low...?

[SUnruh]

wyatt,

you need to ask yourself a few simple questions:

1) can i sleep at night if i don't split the cases and know for sure?

2) can i trust it on the big jump not to sieze and give me a nice ambulance ride?

3) do i have the time/money for a few gaskets now or a new motor later?

(ie pay me now or pay me *big* later!!!)

if you can answer these: yes, yes and no. then ride on! if not, then pull out the wrenches.

imho, it wouldn't even be a blink before it was coming apart.

[jrcgaf364]

I would just pony up the dough for a few gaskets and take er down. like he said "pay me now ... or pay me *BIG* later.

[kawirider]

Wait, if you crash with the bike running, and the breather hose is near dirt/sand/water it can take it up into the motor? Im not really worried right now seeing as I have not crashed my bike yet, but if that is true, I may have to re route that hose.

[grayracer513]

A simple roll of foam the end will keep the sand out. Be sure not to restrict the air flow significantly.

If you found sand or whatever else in the oil filter, remember that the oil that goes through the filter comes from the tank. In this case, it would appear that it was pumped there by the scavenging pump after the top end oil washed it down to the crankcase. The Scotts will filter almost twice as finely as the most finely ground sand, but...

You're taking a calculated risk to keep running it, I would think.

[Wyatt]

Isn't there an oil pump pick-up screen that sits in the bottom of the crankcase? I think that would be the scavenging pump that pumps oil to the tank??

I am going to pull the right side covers off in the morning to see what the bottom of the crankcase looks like.

This completely sucks. The first race of the Winter series that I was looking so forward to racing is next weekend.

[falshh]

The same thing happened to me at the sand track I dont know if it came from the crash I had or from the puddles splashing up into and through the breather tube.I ended up running the breather tube to the airbox using a 1/2barb by 1/2 male pipe thread and threading and sealing it in the plastic and I havnt had a problem since, and I ride there alot.I put it on the side of the air entering the air filter, so there still could be dirty air there but less than it was getting especially from the puddles.

[BergArabia]

I hope this was not as big a problem as it could be...

Thanks for the heads up. I ride in sand a lot.. Well exclusively actually..

After reading your post I went straight down to the bike and rerouted the breather pipe through the airbox...

Really hope this turns out OK for you.

[grayracer513]

Isn't there an oil pump pick-up screen that sits in the bottom of the crankcase? I think that would be the scavenging pump that pumps oil to the tank??

Yes, that's correct. Any debris that entered the crankcase through the vents or elsewhere woul be picked up at that point and sent to the tank. Then it would be pulled from the tank by the feed pump and sent to the filter, which should catch the bulk of it. At least with the Scotts you know that it will do what it says it will. The problem is that the oil tank may have more of the same in it, and I'm not sure how easily the integral tank on the '06 is going to be to wash out. If it were me, I'd drain the tank and pour a 2:1 mineral spirits/ATF mix in through the dipstick port to wash out what I could an let that settle to see what I got. You can probably clean up the insides with the same mix once both covers are off. Remove the oil pump and check/clean it as well as you can. Run some engine oil through the tank, and drain the next oil change after 30 minutes. That might be enough.

I ended up running the breather tube to the airbox using a 1/2barb by 1/2 male pipe thread and threading and sealing it in the plastic and I havnt had a problem since, and I ride there alot.I put it on the side of the air entering the air filter, so there still could be dirty air there but less than it was getting especially from the puddles.

That's a good idea. If you use one of the small automotive PCV filters made for the vent line to the air filter on a car, you can cut away the excess, leaving you with a barb that has a flange that you can use to glue it into the air boot. Cut a small hole for it and glue the barb in from the inside with the barb sticking out toward the front. That will put the breather on the clean air side for even more protection.

[cosgrsea]

can WRF 250's suck up sand in this way too?

[falshh]

Yes, that's correct. Any debris that entered the crankcase through the vents or elsewhere woul be picked up at that point and sent to the tank. Then it would be pulled from the tank by the feed pump and sent to the filter, which should catch the bulk of it. At least with the Scotts you know that it will do what it says it will. The problem is that the oil tank may have more of the same in it, and I'm not sure how easily the integral tank on the '06 is going to be to wash out. If it were me, I'd drain the tank and pour a 2:1 mineral spirits/ATF mix in through the dipstick port to wash out what I could an let that settle to see what I got. You can probably clean up the insides with the same mix once both covers are off. Remove the oil pump and check/clean it as well as you can. Run some engine oil through the tank, and drain the next oil change after 30 minutes. That might be enough.

That's a good idea. If you use one of the small automotive PCV filters made for the vent line to the air filter on a car, you can cut away the excess, leaving you with a barb that has a flange that you can use to glue it into the air boot. Cut a small hole for it and glue the barb in from the inside with the barb sticking out toward the front. That will put the breather on the clean air side for even more protection.

Greyracer I was thinking that if it was on the clean side of the filter, if any oil ever came out of the breather due to overfilling or worn engine etc It would be harder to detect and maybe plug up the carb, I guess its not a big deal either way, I figure if the manafacturer put it out where all the dirt and spray from front tire is the dirt side of the air filter would be o.k., but you did hava a good poing.What I did is use a step drill bit and drilled a hole big enough to thread in the 1/2 male pipe and sealed it with silicone, but your idea may be a little cleaner, although when the seat is back on you can hardly see it.B.T.W I got a brass fitting and a plastic and went with the plastic, it was way lighter.

I had read in a search I did that some guy tried putting some filter material in the hose and thought it caused other problems I dont recall what, maybe blew a seal, but I cant remember, and I dont know if in reality it was from the filter material , but that is why I stayed away from that.

My kx has a breather tube also but it goes into what looks like the top of the tranny part of the motor, I may do something with that also before it causes a problem.

Grey racer do you know what that pcv filter you were refering to , what car is it made for so I can maybe try that this time?I think you were refering to the plastic part of the filter which would be useful.

[snow]

Had the same thing happen to my 450 and I was worried sick. I run mine in the dunes 90% of time and have nitrous on her. Just kept running it and never had a problem. Maybe It will crap out later on but I have over 30 long rides on her and never lost any power. I moved the breather vent to the airbox and bought a small crankcase filter off of a very small car that fits right over the hose.

[grayracer513]

Greyracer I was thinking that if it was on the clean side of the filter, if any oil ever came out of the breather due to overfilling or worn engine etc It would be harder to detect and maybe plug up the carb, I guess its not a big deal either way, I figure if the manafacturer put it out where all the dirt and spray from front tire is the dirt side of the air filter would be o.k.,...

I had read in a search I did that some guy tried putting some filter material in the hose and thought it caused other problems ...

My kx has a breather tube also but it goes into what looks like the top of the tranny part of the motor, I may do something with that also before it causes a problem.

Grey racer do you know what that pcv filter you were refering to ..?

Oil in that area would be harder to notice, but you could also take the idea a step farther and do something along the lines of the breathers on the XR600. They have a dip in the line just before it reaches the air box with a 1/4" tube running down from it to let the oil drain off. That does put an open end of a tube that leads eventually back to the engine out in the open, but it is smaller than the main breather, and not the only path in. The only possible negative to running the tube into the idrty side of the air box is that, with the hose that much shorter than the original, the engine could aspirate some of the very fine dust the full length of the shortened hose at higher engine speeds than would be possible with the original length.

"Filters" to be placed on the bottom of the breather have to have enough airflow capability so that they don't restrict the relief of crankcase pressure. If whathisname just tied something over the end of the hose without taking this into account, he could have easily run into a blown decomp plug or cam cover gasket.

If you're saying that your KXF has a tube running from the top end to the trans case, bear in mind that it has to get to the outside somewhere. Look around.

And on the PCV filter, I don't know the application off the top of my head, but a lot of the chain store auto parts houses have them hanging on bubble cards so you can just pick out what you want by how it looks.

[falshh]

thanks for the info, on the kx the hose comes out of the top of the tranny part of the motor and goes up about 6" and then back down to the same position as the yz breather hose, so I think it is just as likely to get sand in it so I will try your p.c.v filter idea on this one.