Centurion Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Hi all Just a tale of woe to share. I had my WDCO 350 ohv rebored and new piston. When the barrel was off I had a go at the con rod for big end play and all seemed well. The motor was rebuilt and ran in all seemed well it was going fine. I did 600 miles in the UK and about 350 in Holland with no problems. Following a visit to the Killhope lead mine complex in Co Durham I was returning down Weardale to Stanhope when there was a bit of a rattle a lot of smoke and no power. I had it recovered and taken home there seemed to be compression but it was also compressing into the crankcases and blowing out the breather. Head off seemed ok then I took the barrel off and all was not well. The big end had failed allowing the piston to clip the inside of the head and the skirt to touch the flywheel. The piston which was only 4 months old now has half a skirt and the remainder was minced and spread around the motor. I bought it from the RE dealers Hitchcocks and when I get round to the rebuild I am a bit wary of fitting the same make again. So I may be looking for a +40 piston from another source. All ideas and suitable suggestions considered. Regards Centurion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 If it is clearly the big end that's failed, I don't understand why you have concerns about the piston? Why do you want to change to another make or source? I doubt that any make of piston could have survived a catastrophic big end failure. You say it was running fine before, and it's highly unlikely that the piston could have caused the big end to fail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
83KB62 Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 (edited) Oil pump failier is quit common if yours has a dry sump system like my 'modern' Indian R.E. had, it has a sump built into the engine but seperatated from the crank case, a weak supply from the pump or a blockage on the return that feeds the big end would starve the oil feed to the big end journals. I never felt happy with mine, never felt I could trust it, the R.E. forums have many threads on oil pumps failing. Edited September 21, 2011 by 83KB62 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centurion Posted September 22, 2011 Author Share Posted September 22, 2011 Thanks for the response. The piston fitted had a slot cut through the skirt just under the lowest ring . The slotran horizontally from side to side and then vertically to a point just in front of the gudgeon pin hole. Additionally there was a slot cut from the lower edge of the skirt at is deepest point vertically to about 10mm from the other slot described. I can understand the piston taking a hammering but wonder if one with a skirt without these grooves whilst probably not re useable may not have broken up so spectacularly and spread so much debris round the motor. I dont think that the oil pump failed as there is no evidence on any of the other parts to sugges that there was oil starvation. Please see pics for the full extent of the destruction Regards Centurion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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