Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

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SlowJoe
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Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by SlowJoe »

New piston and rings lasted...3 days.

I've been mostly successful in reviving a motorcycle, but of course the one thing I needed done right by someone else...was done wrong. Now the whole eff'in engine has to come out and the top end has to come apart again for a 3rd time.

First the machinist decked the cylinder without trimming the piston crown, so I fabricated a new multi layered base gasket to compensate, and now it's already smoking and rattling around and the piston skirts are completely worn smooth after just 100 km. I don't know what to say anymore except god damn, the incompetence here is infuriating.

Anyone have a machinist in Kampot that wont fuck up a basic rebore? I have very very little money I can spare to get this bike running again and can't afford to have some idiot do a half assed job that wont last a weekend of riding around.

Sorry but, yeah
-Joe
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Ghostwriter
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by Ghostwriter »

No refund ?
SlowJoe
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by SlowJoe »

Ghostwriter wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 2:39 pm No refund ?
If he says it's not his fault, there's not much I can say back to him...
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by SlowJoe »

Addition to details, because I think it's unfair to just say he's incompetent. I'm just angry I have to do the motor a third time...

***

To be honest, it's kind of not his fault, but he did insist on doing things his way which caused the problem in the first place...

I can't really blame him, but at the same time, I'm not going to be able to convince him that he should recut it and buy me a new piston...

EDIT: So just to kind of rant I guess, so I can get this off my chest...because I'm frustrated beyond words...

(Keep in mind I speak Khmer relatively fluently, so I was talking to the machinist about the details...I'm also a small engine mechanic [power equipment mostly, but motorcycles are similar in many ways]).

So what happened is that the motor my bike has was burning about a litre of oil per tank and smoking badly and barely running.

I have a spare cylinder and piston which was severely worn (just obvious from the visual), so I took both of those and had it sleeved and requested a new piston so I could use my smoke machine in the meantime.

The machinist insisted using the old piston because it was better because he thought it was original. I didn't think much of it, I figured he had seen this sort of thing before, so I agreed.

After I got back the piston and cylinder, it felt REALLY tight. I was surprised it was such a tight fit, but then I realized that if it was an OEM's piston, probably it was okay because they're much more stable and tolerant to tighter fits vs. Chinesium pistons (which I've dealt with a lot from eBay and what not, so you want to fit them loosely)...but after 50 ks or so the piston started touching the head, so I clearanced the base gasket side (also to lower compression and pressures), but half a tank of fuel later it started smoking and rattling and I knew it was fucked.

Now that I'm looking at the piston, I am deducing it's not original but a .25 or .50 over (can't tell from the numbering, but the cast marks don't look completely like an OEM) so I'm guessing it means the reason the machinist thought because the bore was unsleeved that it and the piston were original Suzuki versions, but it had already been bored out once before without being sleeved and a Chinese crap piston put in it's place. So the machinst fit this crap piston as if it were good and tightened up the tolerances way too much, and the "original" piston just destroyed itself in a matter of days...

I've seen this sort of thing happen when you try and put Chinese pistons in original motors without derating the power in some way, whether via lowering compression or putting in a milder cam, or retarding ignition timing...also Chinese pistons tend to expand horrendously unevenly compared to OEMs, so you always want to fit them relatively loose to account for that expansion.

Now granted, if he just did what I original asked for (a new piston vs. reusing the original) this wouldn't have happened because he would have machined it as if it were a cheap piston and not fitted it so tightly, but regardless, I wouldn't say he was totally in the wrong with his reasoning.

I'm just pissed that it ended up this perfect storm of reasoning that still got me a fucked up result, and it hurts especially bad when I have so little money to get things going...

Rant over, sometimes things just get fucked up and you just have to suck it up and keep going.

-Joe
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Jerry Atrick
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by Jerry Atrick »

SlowJoe wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 1:21 pm New piston and rings lasted...3 days.

I've been mostly successful in reviving a motorcycle, but of course the one thing I needed done right by someone else...was done wrong. Now the whole eff'in engine has to come out and the top end has to come apart again for a 3rd time.

First the machinist decked the cylinder without trimming the piston crown, so I fabricated a new multi layered base gasket to compensate, and now it's already smoking and rattling around and the piston skirts are completely worn smooth after just 100 km. I don't know what to say anymore except god damn, the incompetence here is infuriating.

Anyone have a machinist in Kampot that wont fuck up a basic rebore? I have very very little money I can spare to get this bike running again and can't afford to have some idiot do a half assed job that wont last a weekend of riding around.

Sorry but, yeah
-Joe

Was the crap job from the guy I referred you to in your XL Degree thread? If not go there

Also, usually if a repair breaks that fast they should rework for free - ofc if you have already opened the engine they wouldn't have to honor that
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by Ghostwriter »

SlowJoe wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 3:57 pm To be honest, it's kind of not his fault, but he did insist on doing things his way which caused the problem in the first place...
So, it's his fault.
It all boils down to where the money go and stays, other than that it's just literature and wishful thinking.
SlowJoe
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by SlowJoe »

Jerry Atrick wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 4:43 pm Was the crap job from the guy I referred you to in your XL Degree thread? If not go there

Also, usually if a repair breaks that fast they should rework for free - ofc if you have already opened the engine they wouldn't have to honor that
That's the shop.

I was happy in general with the process and turnaround time, I think it really was just unfortunate reasoning that led to the piston destroying itself with how he machined it.
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Bitte_Kein_Lexus
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by Bitte_Kein_Lexus »

So you agreed to put an old piston back into a bike, and are now surprised to find out it's not running smoothly?

Just sell the bike for scrap and get a new one. This is causing you more grief than it's worth it, both monetarily-speaking and in terms of time wasted looking for shops and posting the drama here. The Degree is a dinosaur of a bike, and this won't be your only issue in the foreseeable future. Something with easily available parts in Kampot will make your life easier and you'll thank me later.

I only skimmed, but did he sleeve the cylinder or what? What did he do with the original piston? Shave it down to make it fit an undersized bore?
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atst
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by atst »

Did you get the shrug of the shoulders and blank stare when you took the bike back and showed him the problem? It's ok he'll fix it again you just pay again.
Has anyone had a job done tradesman like as expected no matter what the job was?
I'm standing up, so I must be straight.
What's a poor man do when the blues keep following him around.(Smoking Dynamite)
SlowJoe
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Re: Needing competent machinist in Kampot...

Post by SlowJoe »

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 8:59 pm So you agreed to put an old piston back into a bike, and are now surprised to find out it's not running smoothly?

Just sell the bike for scrap and get a new one. This is causing you more grief than it's worth it, both monetarily-speaking and in terms of time wasted looking for shops and posting the drama here. The Degree is a dinosaur of a bike, and this won't be your only issue in the foreseeable future. Something with easily available parts in Kampot will make your life easier and you'll thank me later.

I only skimmed, but did he sleeve the cylinder or what? What did he do with the original piston? Shave it down to make it fit an undersized bore?
The Degree wasn't actually my bike, it was the guy I was working for and I was trying to help him fix it until he decided on not paying me the last month I worked for him.

My bike is an old Suzuki automatic and it's the only thing I can afford at the moment.

Work that was done was a spare cylinder I had (same motor) was sleeved, old piston was used and new rings put on. I then swapped the spare machined cylinder on, and that's what lasted the 50-100 kms. First issue the piston started hitting the head (I thought it was because the cylinder was decked without a proper headgasket to compensate and the sound subsided when I clearanced the cylinder an extra mm), but now I'm leaning towards it just being an improper fit and the skirts just wore down too quickly because the piston was a cheap shit piston to being with instead of being an original. Hard to tell, but that's my best guess being an engine builder.

Truth be told though, I thought he told me he was going to sleeve the cylinder AND put a new piston in, so when I saw the old piston afterwards I was disappointed, but then he explained OEM pistons are much better than aftermarket ones, so that's why he kept it, and me having built engines as a trade I know this to be true because I've experienced it first hand with new aftermarket pistons disintegrating right after a rebuild.

However, putting original pistons in (as long as they pass an out of round test) is common practice in rebuilding, especially if you sleeve a cylinder and it brings it to original ID specs. Pistons are only supports and the rings are what make contact to the cylinder wall.

Problem arises when you clearance something for what you're expecting is a good piston and it turns out to be cheap Chinese shit, then it expands, wears and kills itself in very short order.

I think he just didn't realize the old piston was not an original because the bore I gave him with it had no liner, so he probably assumed the piston was original too and that there wouldn't be someone so stupid as to simply bore an aluminum cylinder out and put a new piston in without some kind of liner or coating...but apparently that's what happened on the spare cylinder (just my luck).

Trust me though, if I could afford a better bike, I most definitely would and if I didn't have to deal with this nonsense and there was another way, I would have already taken it.
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