Hole in the head, but no YICS...

A week or so ago I was attempting to use the colortune that I got.

When I did the 4th cylinder the copper washer got stuck in the recess at the bottom of the sparkplug well. It was wedged in there pretty good so I pulled out the dental pick set to retrieve it.

When I got it out I noticed a hole in the lip of the recess if that makes any sense. It's kind of difficult to explain... the hole is in between where the plug cap seats and where the spark plug crush washer seals...

I don't know if it was there before or if it broke out from the force of the washer wedging in there. I only hand tightened the colortune and I didn't notice any tiny metal chunks flying out of the well...

If I can get a picture I'll post it, if not I'll try to work up a rendering in paint...

When I can get the bike to start it revs up to about 8k rpm and kind of flutters between there and 6k, I'm thinking this hole is the culprit. I tried to test it with propane, but I think the plug cap kind of prevented the gas from getting in, I.E. I didn't notice much difference in rpm's.

IF this is causing my problems what do you guys think I should do? I could try to J.B. weld it, but I dont like that idea. My other thought was to take the bike to a machine shop and see if they could patch it with a quick weld...

I know the real solution is to remove the head and repair/replace it, but I don't have those skills yet, or the money to pay someone to remove it...

Sorry for the short novel, hope it made sense...

 

Deffinately need to see a pic on this one.

Ghost

 

Sounds like a simple casting imperfection to me and if so, it doesn't go very deep or through to the innards or anything like that.

Get us a pic.

 

You could pour water around the sparkplug with the bike idling and see if it bubbles - if I understand your problem.

 

This is the best pic I could get.

 

I was kind of thinking the same thing, as long as the head is sealed it shouldn't suck air from here, but I'm not sure what a cut-away of the head looks like...

On a side note, I could stick the end of the "L" shaped pick into the hole...

That would be a good test, but I don't like letting the engine run at 8 grand with no load. If I did do this test and it is sucking air, I'm assuming the water would cause the idle to stumble, no?

 

Yeah, but... if you have a blatant hole in the head (and I still don't understand exactly where you are referring to, but it is THE HEAD), shouldn't that throw off your compression and make a proper mixture impossible, as well as produce loud noises?

Could you take one more picture for location reference? Good to have one focused on the hole, now another with it out of focus, but its position relative to other parts on the engine made clear.

I know there are several un-used holes/shapes on various parts of my head/engine that were apparently just unused/undrilled things that were in the mold anyways. I imagine that's what is being talked about here?

 

If you are refering to that black spot at approximately the 12:30 clock position. I would tend to agree with Fitz that it is a casting flaw.

Ghost

 

Definitely not one of those...

From the position the picture was taken that's what I'm talking about.

Here's another picture. Sitting on the bike, it's in the 4th cylinder at the slightly after ten o'clock position.

 

No offense, but those are about the two most useless pictures I could imagine...

If you take a small pick and prod about, does it go very far? I still suspect a casting flaw. If it went all the way though, you would KNOW it with the motor running.

 

Personally, I don't see anything wrong. I've seen that kind of thing a lot, and am not concerned about it. I will try and go double=check some of my engines for comparison later this evening, though.

Easiest thing......do a compression test and that will tell you.
If there's a hole into the cyl, you won't have compression. If there's a hole into the oil jacket, you'll have oil spewing everywhere.

I think it's not a case of the washer jamming and causing a hole. It is a case of where the washer just happened to get caught in the hole to begin with, causing you to notice it.



Dave F

 

Could that hole be there for draining water?

 

If you look at the first picture you can see two "seats", an upper one, and a lower one. Standing perpendicular to the bike on the right side, the hole starts on and is biggest at the 1 o'clock position. The second picture shows it's position with the spark plug in. If you look close you can make out the hole. It forms a "v" down the face of the recess until it reaches the the second "seat". A pick can be inserted and turned from side to side. There's no oil spitting out, I will have to check the compression again, can't remember if I checked it before or after I found this hole...

It's definitely not there to drain water.

Hopefully it's just a casting flaw.

 

whats the compression?

 

Ok, you might have been right...

I THINK it might be this http://maxim-x.com/spark_plug_wells.html

I haven't had the time to check it out yet, but hopefully that's what I'm looking at...

 

Glad to have been helpful Rhett, Merry Xmas dude!

 

Yeah, so when you got the dental pick set out, any tips for extracting the washer? Hate to admit it but I just did the same thing... lost track of the Colortune copper washer, inserted a plug and torqued it down to the prescribed spec. Kicking myself...

 

That is a Maxim X head that we are looking at. The plugs sit way down deep in that well. The little "hole" that you Re seeing is for water drainage. It is a small slot that allows rain/water to escape from the plug well. Underneath that is a passage for the water to exit. There is a similarly under the next plug. The drain exit is a small hole in the side of the head and it is hidden behind the fake fin cover. Plugs 1 & 2 drain to the left side, plugs 3 & 4 drain to the right side. I would recommend cleaning the drains out when you get a chance. Every X head that I have had has had those plugged right up with crap. Make see the plugs are installed first so you don't flush garbage into the cyls!!

Dave f

 

Hi Dave. I understand the drain holes. My issue is that I believe I press-fit a colortune washer into the spark plug well. It is resisting all attempts at removal. I torqued a spark plug down on top of it at 12.5 lb-ft. It looks like it expanded to fill the diameter of the well.

Looked up the coefficients of thermal expansion for copper vs. aluminum and I think I'll only pick up 0.00016" if I get the engine up to temperature. That won't do much to free it up.

I don't like the thought of leaving it in, but I'm not sure it will hurt much either. A friend thought I might try to dremel it away, but that's a little scary. I don't know if I could get a bit down in that deep well.

I could pull the head. Sigh.