Repair some small broken bits of engine fins ...

A

armyofda12mnkeys

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So was visiting my friend last Friday where i temporary parked my bike few weeks ago.
It was a 55degree winter day. Perfect for one last ride and riding to my friends warehouse so i can work on it in winter...

But I get to my bike and see someone has taken a brick and smashed my spark plug area (poss during New Years and friends didnt notice it until later this week)...
My friends felt bad and wanted to tell me in person (parked it two years ago and someone pushed my bike over around that area as well)... But alas I showed up when friends were not there to tell me and was pretty pissed right when I got on my bike to ride it off, and neighbor had to tell me what happened.

Looks like I can easily remove the spark plug since the metal wrench part of the plug is still in there... but as they smashed down into the area, they broke small peices of the fins around that area on each side (small .5-1inch pieces to the left and right of the spark plug).
I was curious if its easy to weld some aluminum back on. I am not a welder type person (actually i was taking it to my friends warehouse so he could teach me during winter welding so i could take off the old ignition coils brackets and put new custom one for DynaCoils heh). I think I read some people using JB-Weld somehow, or using 'Tig welding'. Not sure what is optimal (think might have read a post saying JBWeld might not be perfect for a hot engine).

I have full coverage insurance on bike, so I can also get a mechanic to do it if its quicker. Just need to know what is best way to do it (I was worried a mechanic might tend to do the quickest fix/patch to make most money, so I thought I'd ask if JB-Weld for example is not a good solution [I've been burned before by some shoddy mechanic work hence why I started doing maintenance and other work myself]).

Thanks!,
Ari

pic attached:
IMG_4626 (Large).JPG
 
Holy crap! It looks like they broke straight through the head! That looks like it's toast to me... Also, as far as I know, all high-temperature resins are ceramic based, which means they are (probably) thermal insulators, and that defeats the purpose of repairing the fins. If I were to try and repair fins, I would think a MIG welder would be best, since it uses a really fine gauge core.
 
I don't have an answer for that one, but damn that sucks. People suck sometime...I wonder if it would be safe or operable as is? Maybe insurance will total and then replace. Wow good luck.
 
ffs, some dick wads out there :wtf:

you can use something called lumiweld, its a low temperature filler that wont melt the original fins, but can build up the surface area of the fins. Then they can be dressed with a file. supposadly as strong as the alu itself
 
makes you want to park it there again..... and sit up about a block away on top of a tall building with a scoped .308
 
jayel said:
makes you want to park it there again..... and sit up about a block away on top of a tall building with a scoped .308
Click to expand...

hah, my friend does have a shotgun :).
We saw a person running away from the street the week before that, with someone chasing after him yelling 'stop him!'. He was a bike theif... cop car came by and my friend directed him to where thief ran. They caught him, but the guy didn't want to goto station at 2am to press charges. So they had to let him go, My friend spent a good 20m arguing with police how to put him into the system so he can't do it again (since he's one of heads of townwatch and was pretty pissed they were gonna let him go...). Maybe the thief figured out where my friend lives and the revenge was more directed at him? heh. (i wonder though, he could have just thrown a brick threw the window)

When i was inspecting my bike for damage, some neighborhood kids were walking by and threw a pumpkin at my friends car that was parked in a lot too! (i wonder where they got a pumpkin in January lol).

Its annoying my friend spent so much money on a nice house in a 'hip and trendy' area of the city... and the bad areas are 2blocks away, so seems like annoying kids and druggies come to reak some fun on us.

ThePsuedoMonkey, does it really look toast? I just assumed it was the outer fins and nothing related to the main head part itself, aka I should be able to turn it on and have no oil/air leaking out?

Thanks drewpy, I'll mention to insurance as an option to use that ... I also do have my old 1978 engine... (i got this 1980? engine cause it was cheap, rebuilt, and had the electronic ignition stuff already in the top left part of engine). I guess I could put the old engine back on. and swap out the contacts in there with the electronic ignition.
 
I could not see why it would not run just put a new plug in it. Just keep an eye on the head gasket where the brick hit the bottom fin. It looks like its time to move:wink2:
 
haha, I dont live there but I am starting to get to age where I thinking more about buying a house... and surprised that at 29, i don't want to live downtown anymore heh.

This was btw my xs400 Norton-Manx-cafe-wannabe baby too:

4869750361_40059e0cfc_z.jpg
 
If it was me I'd just blow off all the brick dust, pop in a plug and ride it. You might want to take a piece of sandpaper or a small file and clean it up a little so you don't cut yourself next time you work on it. It's just some cooling fins, there might be a small bit of a hot spot, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. Sucks that it happened though. Gotta watch out for city hand grenades, I grew up in Wilmington, DE where parts of houses and sidewalks were missing from brick fights.
 
Tig welding is by far the way to go if you can. If your friend has a tig thats what I would do. I've got a couple fins on mine I have to weld.

JB weld would probably work but as a welder I wouldn't go that way. To me it just seems temporary.

It wouldn't be a difficult repair for a welder but don't try to learn to tig weld on this job. I have a couple yamaha tx500s and when I started stripping the engine I broke a fin off just using the palm of my hand, it turned out someone had JB welded it back on before I hit it. That being said alot of people swear by the stuff.

Either way JB or tig weld it. Aladdin sells some low temp rod for use with oxy fuel thats pritty easy to use aswell.

There is still quite abit of fin left so mabey just clean up like was said earlier and monitor the situation. If you find its getting hot on that side do the repair later.

Shaun
 
Well, my friend gave me a good reason why a thief in the area would just focus on my spark plug and not messing up all the other major fins. He just wanted a piece of the sparkplug:


There are alot of car window break-ins around the block (so much that my friend doesnt even replace his old Toyota's small front-side window after 3 break-ins).
 
armyofda12mnkeys said:
...
ThePsuedoMonkey, does it really look toast? I just assumed it was the outer fins and nothing related to the main head part itself, aka I should be able to turn it on and have no oil/air leaking out?
...
Click to expand...

I was looking at this area:Clipboard01.jpg
Maybe it's just perspective, but it looks like the cylinder wall was broken through.
 
I wouldn't worry about the heat factor,as that far away from the motor,it's more cosmetic than anything else.Air flow is good at that place,and the plug creates heat,but no more than was broken,you'll be O.K.. lha Oh yeah,time to move,that's why I live in the country,no punks,just targets.HaHa!!!
 
Anyone know the part that plugs into the spark plug (aka the flexible rubbery ignition wire gets connected to this part which itself snaps to the spark plug)? The guy actually somehow shattered that piece with the brick [guess since its a harder rubber/plastic material].

I bought this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380400049259&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:1123

But I just tried to fit it on my spark plug, and its too small.

Since the engine in my bike I swapped in currently uses electronic ignition, i think its probably from 80 or 81 standard XS400 based on guy i bought it from (engine looks exactly the same, only difference is instead of contacts, it has the electronic ignition stuff in top engine part). That ebay seller probably generically thought it would fit all models.

Thanks,
Arian
 
More than likely you need to remove the cap at the end of the plug.
 
Last edited:
Thanks xschris,
I was actually trying to force the spark plug through the 'rubber part' on the cap when it was hard to do in the cold outside, I just slid the rubber part over the spark plug, plugged it into the cap, then slid that rubber part of the cap over to the main piece.

She started up fine.
Waiting to hear back from insurance what they will do with cosmetic repairs.
 

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