Journaling my Odyssey "adventure".

5/19/2012: We picked up a pair of FL350R's a few weeks ago for $1200 a piece. #1 is a runner (bone stock save a watercooled head). #2 unfortunately had the airbox carb boot disconnected with about a 1/2" gap. The previous owners ran both Odyssey's in central Oregon in areas with super fine lava loam/dust. The Engine has zero compression. Both had dead starters. One was missing the brush plate completely and had some oil in it, the other one had the brushes, but they were totally worn out and it had a ton of oil in it. Both Odyssey's came with Comet 102C drive clutches installed, a nice upgrade.



FL350 #1, the stock one with the watercooled Rand head needed a new fuel tee/bypass valve, fresh gas, and a carb cleaning to be rolling. Even with a #140 main jet and needle in the #2 position, it still runs pretty rich at 1000ft elevation. Put a Klemm Research airbox lid off the dead FL350 on it to see if that'd lean it out a bit. It helped, but the inside of the muffler is jet black, and it's really fat. Better safe than sorry. Ran Polaris Semi-Synthetic at 40:1 for the first outing. I'm going to give Maxima Super-M a try at 32:1.

5/29/2012: Wife taking it for a spin:



FL350 #2 has some port work and a DG pipe on it, and had the Klemm airbox lid. After pulling the Engine and removing the cylinder and head, I was greeted by nasty dust/oil on everything in the crankcase. Even the piston pin was covered in the gunk.

6/3/2012: Rebuilt and installed the starter for FL350 #1. Ordered two sets of starter rebuild kits off ebay. Quality seems pretty good. Turned the commutator on my metal lathe.



Goofing around with the brushes. The obvious answer was to just release the springs while putting the plate on.



The route I took to install the starter was to not remove the Engine, but pull various parts off and install it in-chassis.

1) Pulled the left rear wheel/tire
2) Pulled the PTO drive pulley (Comet 102C, same puller as Polaris P85)
3) Loosened the rear brake caliper and disk (didn't fully remove them)
4) Pulled the fuel tank
5) Pulled the carb

After that, I was able to remove all the starter bolts, including the bracket, and slide the starter out through the carb area on the right side.

It took a while the first time, but if I had it to do over, I could probably do it in an hour.

Sourced the correct battery from Walmart. Sure beats pulling on a starter rope.

6/8/2012: Got the new Wiseco 80mm piston kit in the mail, along with the wrist pin bearing. Will take the cylinder and piston to the machine shop for fitment. Looking to use .004" clearance, drill the piston for two lube holes for the exhaust bridge, and chamfer the lower edge of the piston well.

Now that parts have started arriving, I pulled the crankcase down. Some lovely gunk inside and on the crank:



The balancer gear nut on the crank, and the stator nut on the other end of the crank didn't seem torqued properly. They came off very easily.



Somebody had used a chisel to take the nut off previously. Hack job, though it looks like it's ok.

I don't have a case splitter yet, so will see if a mechanic buddy has one I can use or something we can adapt. The Engine is getting all new bearings and all seals. I'll be fixing the balancer gear breather setup as well. From the research I've been doing, it looks like a bellows vent is the hot ticket, that way the system stays sealed.

The bendix in the starter that is going in #2 is pretty rough and doesn't retract smoothly so I picked up another bendix off ebay. Works perfectly now, and awaits installation.

Split the crankcase today. The insides were just lovely.







Checked the side clearance on the con rod big end. Measured right at 0.022", well within specs. The needle bearings and crank surface looked to be in excellent shape.

Ordered a full Vesrah gasket kit off ebay. Not sure if the base gasket is aluminum or paper. I'm sealing up the balancer oil breather and will make an external breather setup, so does it matter what the base gasket is made out of?

I'm looking for advice on how to make this thing live. I've been surfing the forum here for a few days. Random list of what I've found:

1) Double-check chamfer on ports
2) Make sure exhaust bridge is relieved about 0.004", and smoothly tapers vertically in both directions (easier on the rings)
3) Drill piston with two oil holes lined up with the exhaust bridge (I have the dimensions for that)
4) Ordered one of those Suzuki axle breather bellows. Will machine a replacement plug and attach that to it, hopefully without a hose
5) Make sure all gasket surfaces are in good shape and line up perfectly. Trim excess gasket material for zero leaks.

The Engine that is being rebuilt had some light port work done by someone, nothing extreme. Looks like a lot of it was just casting cleanup.

Should I worry about chamfering the oil holes that feed the main bearings? I haven't seen anyone saying the stock holes are a problem on the FL350, but needs work on the Pilot Engine.

Welcome fellow 350 owner!

The base gasket in the Vesrah kit is paper. Speedchaser on the board here makes a nice thin aluminum gasket that works well. The problem with using the Vesrah base gasket is that it is thicker than the factory gasket (also thin aluminum) and when used, it increases the squish band and lowers compression.

You can use only one of the thin head gaskets to increase compression also.

By the looks of the bottom end, you may want to double check the wear on the connecting rod bottom bearing. If that thing got a steady injection of volcanic ash, there's a good chance it has significant wear.

Rand

When I checked the side clearance on the rod bearing, the needles looked to be in good shape. They didn't have a matt or sanded appearance, as I think they would if they had been blasted by the dust. I'll set up a dial indicator to check radial play as well.

Yeah go ahead and dress up the oil feed holes while you have it apart.

Any other reliability mods I should be doing to the Engine?

With the Engine cases apart, I can see the first actual hole in the balancer breather path inside the case that leads to the chamber under the cylinder. Is there any reason I shouldn't just plug the hole there as opposed to out next to the magneto? It'd keep the oil from collecting in the rest of the breather path, not that it really matters.

I use the hole on the generator side because it has a nice flat machined area. This allows me to use a self tapping sheet metal screw dipped in high heat silicone as the plug. The head screw then has a nice flat surface for it to seat against to assure a good seal.

By the way, I have been experimenting on the type of bellows to be used as the expansion device on the end of the breather expansion hose.

The bellows which works well is a differential bellows from a 2007 Can Am 500CC Outlander part number 705400352. They expand nicely and are of good quality. The bellows I used previously seemed to be too stiff and I don't believe expand as much thus not relieving pressure. The only draw back I have found is that they are white in color.

Rand

Which bellows were you using originally? One off a Suzuki? Or from a different non-motorcycle vendor? I ordered a pair of the Suzuki Vinson (sp?) rear axle bellows from Carl's Cycle. Haven't received them yet.

If exhaust heat isn't a problem that close to the dip stick, I'm going to machine a replacement plug with a nipple that the bellows can attach to directly, and eliminate the hose completely.

Here is one of the bellows I used for the original vent system.

http://www.polyperformance.com/shop/PSC ... 17158.html

The only problem I have found with using the dip stick hole is that the thread size of the dip stick plug is an oddball. The thread size is 1.4 x 2.0. The only fitting I have found to mate to this hole is the Ford F150 radiator petcock. I also have found that this is also the thread for several lug nuts but again, nothing that will easily thread into the plug hole.

I don't see any problem with using a bellows directly off the plug itself unless the rubber being used couldn't stand the temperature generated by the Engine case. The air travels through this area on the bellows first so as long as you are moving the bellows would actually stay quite cool. However the heat from the plug is going to transfer directly to the bellows.

The only other issue I have come across is the difficulty in removing the bellows assembly to check the oil level. Getting a wrench in there is almost impossible so I designed mine with a simple tab to allow you to remove the plug without tools.

If you are able to machine a plug I want three of them at least!

Keep us posted!

Rand

14 X 2.0 bolts fit. I'm going to modify one on the lathe to suit my purposes. Will probably just shorten it, drill through the middle, and thread the end for a brass pipe barb to attach the bellows to. If the concept proves itself out, I'll go from there.

Obviously a bolt will fit. I am looking for over the counter stuff available for those of us without a machine shop at our disposal. Not everybody has access to a lathe.

Like I said, you will need to do something that will make it easy to remove the plug and bellows without tools. Little to no room behind the seat for a wrench.

Rand

Welcome ttyR2:
This is a very good site for info on oddy's.
I own two fl350's. I gave one to my brother.
We have both blown a motor (( Internal Combustion Engine ? )). I have blown two. My first blew because of a previous owner boo boo that I didn't notice.
The second poof kaboom I don't know what happened. Possibly poor oil mix ratio on my part. There is a sticker on the tank
that says 20 to 1. It's there for a reason. One other problem these machines have is lack of cooling because motor (( Internal Combustion Engine ? )) behind seat.
My brother and I have both installed 4" bilge fans on the heads for cooling. Don't know how well this works yet because still doing
Engine rebuilds. It might be something to consider if one of your machines is still only air cooled.

Got the cylinder back from a quick honing. The machinist said the cylinder was as close to perfectly straight as he's seen, so a light hone is all it took. I checked on my own and could run a 0.004" feeler gauge between the piston and bore, but not quite a 0.005", so I think it'll be fine. I'll break it in properly.





On the intake side, there's a pretty good step (probably a bit over 1/16") between the intake throat and the cylinder sleeve (the aluminum is higher than the steel sleeve port, not lower). Is that worth blending in? The ports edges will get a careful going over to make sure they are chamfered properly as well. Some look like they were hit with a grinder and not smoothed out afterwards.

Looks to me that your cylinder has been sleeved before.

Maybe. I have no way of knowing.

Should I worry about blending in the intake throat to the sleeve? Or just leave it. This is a recreational machine, not a racer.

Never hurts to blend that area stuff the reeds in the cylinder and look at how they block it, some claim a reed spacer helps with this problem?

Getting ready to put the crankcase back together. All the bearings are installed, but after consulting the service manual, it shows some of the seals being installed before the bearings. Did I screw up, or can the seals be installed with the bearings already installed? I didn't want to install the seals until the cases were together to prevent damaging them when using a puller to pull the crankshaft into the cases.

I heated the cases to about 200deg F in the oven and froze the bearings, and then installed them. Worked like a champ.

Just put the left-side crank seal in. Does this look like it's in far enough? It's about 1/16" below the end of the spacer that the balancer gear butts up against.



After reading this old topic, I'm wondering if I installed the seal backwards http://www.pilotodyssey.com/PO/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1840. The pictures in the printed manual I have aren't clear enough to tell. Anyone know which way it's supposed to be installed?

Actually, I was looking at the parts diagram off a microfiche. In the service manual, the schematic shows pretty clearly that the solid side of both crank seals face away from the crank.

Not sure yet, but when I went to mark the exhaust bridge onto the piston, it seemed like there was way too much clearance on the new piston. Will have it checked tomorrow.

Built a crankshaft balancer gear socket using a 41mm 3/4" drive socket and a random 1/2" drive socket. Bored the 3/4" drive end of the big socket out on the lathe (knocked the tip off a few boring bars in the process), faced the end, and used the lathe to hold the 1/2" socket to the 3/4" drive socket and marked a centering ring with a sharpie. Welded it up, and it was ready to use.







Made up a vent fitting based on the info you guys posted about the Dorman replacement radiator plug. Turned out well.





Cut the brass nipple off a fuel line fitting, added a little sealant, and tapped it in.

Yep, so had a machine shop check out the cylinder and piston. Waaaaay too much clearance. Over .007". So...anyone wanna buy an 80mm Wiseco piston, brand new?

Will be ordering an 80.50mm Wiseco.