I have an odyssey that when I tested it had 0 compression. I took the head off, and the piston was not in good shape. I'm currently trying to remove the cylinder and it's definitely tougher to remove then the head. Anyone have a good trick to remove the cylinder?

-Seat removed
-Carb removed
-Air cleaner removed
-Air scoops removed

Still tricky to get access to these cylinder nuts. Any help would be appreciated!!!

Thanks
M

I would just pull the Engine. With zero compression you will have to anyway.

I agree with rmesser here.
Pull it and do a complete tear down. Then you can inspect the bearings and rod bearing. At that point you know what you got to work with.
Since you already yanked the head you can't do a leak down test. Too bad. You missed a golden opportunity to know if the crank seals were still good. Now your going to have to replace them. If you put it all together and the seals leak you gota do it all again. That's why you NEVER take a two stroke apart until you do a leak down test.

Here's the pic of the piston, I believe it was just a top end failure. Everything up until the last ride was running perfectly. I figured on replacing the crank seals anyway, isn't that just a standard when it's to this point anyway?

I can tell already that it's poo fuel.

I always run 93 octane from shell only. But I have owned this odyssey for less then 1 year. Are you saying the previous owner used garbage fuel? How can you tell? Carbon build up, what's the give away?

So I was planning on trying to do the rebuild myself. I was going to go to a water cooled head, take the cylinder to a machine shop in the city to see what work needs to be done. But the cylinder nuts are not budging at the moment. If I can't move them tomorrow I was planning on a nut cracker, thoughts?

Please zoom in on piston 3 and 5. ----- Look familiar ??
Your piston there is not white on top so it does not look lean. The blackness tells me it was jetted/oil correct. Pit marks on the piston where it is damaged just screams detonation to me. Was it a hot day when you were riding ?? Humid ?? You were having fun and driving the bag off it weren't you ?? You didn't stop to let it cool at any point did you ?? It happened at the end of a very long high speed run didn't it ?? A long flat road, not a steep hill probably -- Right ??
Cylinder nuts -- you can try to double wrench them to get them off. Won't be able to do that in place though.

The weird thing is it was the very beginning of the day. I drove it down the street to the area where we drive. We set up the drone and the go pros up, jumped in the buggies, and then we were off. Ran great for 10 seconds but died immediately. My nephew made a lap and then had to tow me back home. I do remember that day was a very hot and humid though.

Have you gone to a water cooled head? Will it extend Engine life? Thanks for the insight!

I have taken my motor (( Internal Combustion Engine ? )) out a couple of times and its a lot less hassle if you take the roll cage off . An extra 1/2 hour work will give you a lot of room to get the motor (( Internal Combustion Engine ? )) out .

[i]The weird thing is it was the very beginning of the day. I drove it down the street to the area where we drive. We set up the drone and the go pros up, jumped in the buggies, and then we were off. Ran great for 10 seconds but died immediately. My nephew made a lap and then had to tow me back home. I do remember that day was a very hot and humid though.

Have you gone to a water cooled head? Will it extend Engine life? Thanks for the insight!




You went lean and burned up the exhaust side of the piston, it wasn't "poo fuel".

When you are on the edge of jetting as you probably are, it only takes a small change in atmospheric conditions to burn an Ody top end.

Think of it this way..... You have a specific air/fuel ratio which is required for a proper combustion cycle. If the air is heavily laden with water, it changes that air/fuel ratio and therefore more fuel is required to keep the Engine from detonating and burning up.

A water cooled head will help extend Engine life. The only downside is that it does make an Ody a little cold blooded.

Rand

You have been here a couple of years now so you must of read some of my posts.
Based on those posts you know my bias.
When you get time ----- in the search box hit "octane" and in the "author" box type my name. You will get more hits than you will have time to read.
I have homemade water cooled head and cylinder with Honda civic rads on both my machines.
My opinion is you don't need to water cool but you MUST run high octane fuel. Just my opinion.
Let the arguments proceed.

When I was a kid I had many dirt bikes. I was a Can-Am and Kawasaki guy back then. Owned a Can-Am mx3 (pumkin), mx6, mx7 and a TnT. Owned several Kx125 and several Kx250's and a 250kxt Tecate three wheeler. Also a Yamaha TY175 trials. Yet everyone of those bikes were just gas an go. I NEVER blew an Engine or had to re-jet. I did blow the transmission on the pumpkin and a CDI (Capacitor Discharge Ignition) unit on the Tecate. Now we come to the Honda Odyssey. Piece of crap blew up constantly on me.
Honda only made them for one year -- why is that ?? Four years later they came out with a liquid cooled 400 -- hummmmm. The FL350 had many recalls and then they gave up on it. I think they finally figured out that putting an air cooled Engine behind a seat was a stupid idea. This is the major flaw in the oddy in my opinion. The Engine will get hot and if the weather outside is a bit off poofkaboom Engine gone.
I agree some what with Randman on the humidity thing. It makes perfect sense to me. However I find it incredible that a guy would have to carry a pocket full of jets and re-jet his machine every fn day. I never had to do that on any of my other bikes, it was just gas n go. Also the fuel they had back then had no ethanol (stupid hug a whale kiss a bear enviro freaks). I can tell you that since I have switched to running Avgas I have not lost an Engine and it is just gas n go -- no goddamn rejetting. We run from just above sea level to just over 5100ft and the humidity in this area is never under 65%. I live on the west coast and this is a rain forest (honest). Here in B.C we have several climate zones. Rain forest here on the coast and 1hr drive from my house is dessert with sage brush and rattle snakes. Go a bit farther and it turns into plains or swamps. Go a bit farther and it becomes northern tundra. This is all within 12hrs drive. We don't re-jet and we don't blow engines anymore.

I jet my engines fat to just short of fouling spark plugs. Every once in a while I have to change plugs..... cheap insurance!

As for the humidity thing it plays a huge difference in how an Engine will run. As an example, I went to the Oregon dunes for a three day trip with Duneit and friends. Now riding in the dunes themselves the Ody ran great with no issues. The moment we hit the beach with a little bit of fog which equals a shit ton of humidity, the Ody was down on power. From previous experience I knew better than to push the Ody past 1/2 throttle.

Wish I could say that I've never burnt o hole in a piston one yet but I would be lying. I burned up an FL250 making high speed passes on the beach at Pismo. There's that humidity thing rearing it's ugly head.

By the way, I have yet to burn up an FL350 Ody Engine. This is using 91 octane with 10% ethanol at 30/1 using Amsoil Dominator 2 stroke mix.


Rand

When reading this next part keep in mind that mine are now water cooled, so when I talk about oil mix that don't apply to you.

I run Avgas, run 50/1 oil mix, never re-jet, run the same plug all year.
Get great fuel mileage. Never blew an Engine regardless of weather or altitude.
Never lost an Engine on Avgas.
You choose.

I can't get these nuts to budge. Worked on it for an hour or so this morning got frustrated and figured better to just move along to another project before I frustrate myself to death. I run 93 octane, 10% ethanol, gas from shell only. 32:1 with a full synthetic Kawasaki mix. Thanks everyone for the insight, I ordered 2 water cooled heads, and I'm going to convert over to water cooled machines.

Mike

Still easy to burn up a piston with a water-cooled head if your jetting is wrong (or if you have an air leak, etc). The water jacket cannot remove heat fast or efficiently enough to prevent the aluminum from diving off the 1300'F deep end under a lean or detonation condition.

Make sure there are no air leaks.

Piston must have lube holes & the exhaust bridge relief.

Run good fuel, the same fuel, every time.

Apply proper jetting with plug chops. Run it a tad fat as mentioned above.

Run an EGT gage for extra insurance. EGT is like $120, but a new top-end is like $250-$300 and a weekend trip killer. EGT will tell you when you've gone WOT (Wide Open Throttle) for too long, if you're too lean, etc.


-D$

Thanks for all the help guys. What do you guys mean about jetting things fat? Also mentioned was aviation fuel, I don't even know where I would even get my hands on that, any insight there?

I haven't been able to move these bolts, has anyone ever tried one of those nut splitter devices (love the name)

Thanks
Mike

1) Jetting things fat
Means to run an Engine rich. A big main jet. More than what is needed for perfect jetting.
2) Aviation fuel
This is a topic which sometimes causes arguments here. I run Avgas to prevent detonation. Detonation will destroy a piston in seconds. You won't even know until it is to late most of the time. Aviation fuel (avgas) is the 100LL (100 octane Low Lead) stuff you get at a local airport. I have one just one mile from my house so it is easy for me to get.
3) Nut splitter
Forget it. You probably won't get it in there anyways and they don't work well in my opinion. You will cause more damage than it is worth. If you have a oxy/acet torch or a propane torch try to heat up the nut as they may have Loctite on them.
Clean any exposed threads with a wire brush or toothbrush. Then put some penetrating oil on them. Let it sit for a few days and then try to heat up and take off. Use a box end not an open end wrench with a cheater pipe on the end.

Here is some reading if you are interested:
http://www.klemmvintage.com/camerondeto.htm
http://www.klemmvintage.com/deto.htm

I saw a product a few months ago that froze the nut and bolt causing them to shrink and then they expand to normal size breaking the bond between the nut and bolt. It comes in a regular rattle can.
It was on one of those "hot rod " type of shows a few months ago.
It was called Freeze Off or something similar.

Is this the stuff ??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0BaowQvL6c
Never used it myself but I would say you probably need a few cans of it because a nut won't insta-freeze. Probably need half a can for one nut. But it makes sense to me because I remember one time way back in the 70's at work, a millwright took several pyreen filled fire extinguishers and sprayed a shaft with it. Then he just slid the bearing on. Haven't seen any of those extinguishers around anymore.

The company I work for runs CRC's west coast distribution warehouse. This stuff is just HFC-152a refrigerant and penetrating oil. I have yet to use it but it looks like it might just work.

Rand

When I saw it they were using it to remove old rusted exhaust manifold bolts on a jeep because they were notorious for breaking.
Personally l use heat but some may not have access to or may not be comfortable with a torch.