Warning

A warning to all 650 lovers , I got sold a 840 conversion via ebay for a lage amount of money and took all my engine spares as part payment ensuring me it would be reliable etc. (I would have happily kept one of the two engines and given the more cash ) . The only good thing i can say is its very fast however it has been leaking oil from various places since the word go, to start with I keep finding old O-rings that are flat and obviously 30 years old and it leaked from every rocker cover and the cam chain tentioner (this wasn't even done up), Ok tweak it ride to MOT , now leaking from oil feed to the head so i take it back 150 miles to have him have a look and set it up on the dyno , get it home go out for a ride , hmmm still leaking :-( , attempt 3 i think i over did the union , OK my cock up , take it back grovel and part with £150 to put a helicoil in (complete strip down to gain access ) ok fair enough ! I get halfway home to find its still leaking from the base gasket quite a lot to form a puddle on the top of the cases , ring him up , re tougque to 30 foot pounds , still leaks , and i notice leaking from the cam end caps and clutch pushrod seal (did he re use all the old seals ??) rung up and dropped bike off , go back to collect had a bloody good look , oh still leaking , I was left outside being ignored all afternoon " i dont know what to sugest" he says ! Ok so iv just blown £1700 on a peice of shit !!! and now have no spares !!! Im prety sure iv been lied to regarding testing and the ineeling of gaskets (copper head and base) , the fix on the oil feed looks nasty and to be honest the paint he used to tart it up is falling off where the oil is leaking so much ! I feel I have been ripped off roaly as every trip back costs me at least £120 !

Helluva first post.......................

Welcome to the site.

This shows the reason to study up on these bikes and become your own mechanic/electrician. With the huge amount of technical information available, anyone can become a master repair person/engine tuner

Yea i know would much rather be saying how wonderfull my new engine is :-( oh well when iv calmed down about it il have to do a re-build myself !! it was a stressfull build , i could tell all of the problems i had getting a 16" rim laced on to my rear hub , apparently it cant be done lol !

very true , the original plan was to do a 750 and have the crack of doing it myself , starting to think thats what i should have done ! oh yea , my old engine used to burn oil and leak , is it normal for a new engine to use oil ? its done aprox 500 miles now but im still topping up quite a bit , 150 mile ride i had to put 750ml + in ?? I know it will use a bit of oil because of its nater but i did think this was quite a lot ! although it is leaking from the base im sure it didn't leak all that out as the bike would have been covered in oil , my mate said it was puffing on over run quite a bit !

Sounds to me as though he has ripped you thourougly...Has he actually replaced any of the internals with new parts...???

Welcome blim840
Sorry to hear of your troubles, they have a complete bike with one of their engines in it for sale on ebay at the moment.
Thanks for the warning, I was quite interested in their 840 kits but just rebuilding my stock 650 is becoming expensive enough at the moment
Hope ya get your engine sorted, let us know of the sort of response you get from them, it will be of interest to UK members
PM sent
Kev

blim840;

750 ml in 150 miles........................that sounds like the head gasket is passing oil from the camchain tunnel into the cylinders. Your spark plugs are likely black. I had the same thing when I first got my bike..................you'll see puffs of black smoke out the exhaust.

Since putting this post up I have been offered a refund , unfortunately this would leave me with no engine, or he has offered to re-build it with new gaskets but i would still be out of pocket for petrol, Im not sure what im going to do yet but I am very disapointed as I was quite looking forward to riding a well sorted athletic XS ! Had it had the new gaskets on the last visit it prob would have been !

I'd write up a balance of what this ordeal has cost you and demand that he reimburses you fully. If not....although I'm strongly against it 99% of the time... I'd take him to court.

I just want my bike sorted , especialy now the weather is good , oh well i think i shall ride it for a while and sort it over next winter :-( !