I will post up videos later, this was sort of a weekend of carnage though, still that's what it's all about, Ride hard, fix it, ride hard some more!

Last Thanksgiving I had an issue with my Hayabusa mini car, second gear was starting to pop out, not uncommon on the gen one.
first weekend, pull the Engine, order undercut second/6th gear set shift fork and gaskets, $580! ouch.
Weekend 2, split the Engine case replace the gear set and shift fork and reassemble.
Weekend 3, put the Engine back into the car and hook up everything, over all, not hard, just a pain in the ass.
time to load the car and pilot and be ready for the next weekend.

Sand conditions are good for a major weekend but it is only the 27th, there had been some rain so conditions ranged from hard pack and smooth where the wind had blown all the dry sand off, then there was the dry sand, much of it nice, then there was the loamy stuff, where the wet sand was tore up,

So, the car is running great now, no problem with the gears. out on the second ride with the car, 3/4 of a ride in and all hell breaks loose, well lets just say for a couple seconds it sounded like it, turns out I broke a U joint yoke, I think that's what it is, the part of the axle that carries the needle bearing cage, this was on the left axle at the spool.
It pitched half of the axle a ways, lucky it did not do much damage on the way out.
we had a few tools and an improvised hammer AKA, 1/2 of an axle and pulled the other 1/2 off of the car. on the hook and back to camp, turns out you can not drive the dunes with a one wheel drive car but I was able to help my tow vehicle when going up hill.

one car down, able to drive it into the trailer, at least that was a plus!

I have video I need to upload that I had a friend with the camera on his car, so I have the point of the axle coming apart, I have not looked to see if I can see the frame with it leaving the car.

more to come

Man that sucks, hopefully it isn’t to tore up. I saw some of the carnage out there on IG. People get crazy, insaw one person died out there.

The crowds are what keep me away from the sand.

I love destruction

I mean "man that sucks".

Pics of that second gear please.
From your description of what was happening I think it sounds like the same thing that happened to my formula race car. If it is then I may have a suggestion that will save you money.

When you see some of the video you will see that there is a lot of sand and you can get away from the crowd, that said the off weekends are great, our next 2 trips are that way, super bowl weekend, many people have things to do, parties and want to stay at home and watch the game, I take a few days off, go out on Wednesday or Thursday and stay and watch the game at the dunes, then either leave in the evening and drive 1/2 way or just leave in the morning.
the next off weekend we hit is the weekend after presidents day, that is a big weekend, the next is not so much and there should be a good blow in between to reset the sand.

It's too bad some people have to get injured or die because of others stupidity, this was caused by some idiot in big sand rail thinking it would be a good idea to jump up the same jump everyone was jumping down, without a spotter, went head on into a side by side and pinned the driver and from my understanding died at the scene with his 2 young daughters in the car, accidents are one thing but this is manslaughter, the driver should be held and jailed then have to put the guys kids through school. very sad.

ride report continued:
so you may have seen the other post from the weekend, I could have saved a lot of time and got in another ride had I just changed the battery and been done with it, http://www.pilotodyssey.com/PO/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18333&p=177134#p177134So the Pilot with the 670 is running better than good at this time, when on a fairly slow cruzer ride, hung out in the back with a camera on the car in front facing back, I get a good idea of how the front suspension is working, seems to be doing good, I thought the springs were too stiff but it seems when driving the ride height is ok, I will mess with the comp and rebound damping.
No issues on that ride, I kind of loose tract of some of the rides if nothing happens, I have CRS
next ride, That I recal, I was taking point and I like to flog it, it was a good 2/3s to 3/4s of a ride as well, on one of our stops I noticed the Engine start reving out, cut the Engine and checked the fuel, tank was empty, good that we stopped, not a good idea to run out of fuel running hard, that lean condition will act as a cutting torch right through a piston!
no spare fuel, no one else with a 2 stroke, back on the hook to camp, second time in one trip, feels like the days I had the Cannondale!
To be continued...

next ride was later that evening, went to the hill (Oldsmobile) to check the action, it really was not that much going on for a holiday weekend, we then went out for a bit of night ride, just cruising looking for smooth sand, found some! My friend, Roy was leading, everyone else just following, we ended up pretty far out for a night ride, one of the guys mentioned we'll know when the ride is over when I run out of gas
it was a good ride but my hands were getting pretty cold even with gloves, Roy's riding a quad and does not wear gloves, I think his hands must go numb and then it doesn't bother him.

and then, the last ride, it started off just getting through the small dunes behind the washes heading south, headed towards hill 5, that was the plan.
got into the good stuff and start to put some power down well this ride we were only about 1/3 into it when BANG, BAng, bang, and shut down, not what you want to hear on a ride, get out of the pilot and check out what happened, as it turns out the primary clutch exploded, and what I mean by that is shrapnel flying, we found a big chunk, and upon reviewing the video I can see many pieces hitting the sand, 3 times on the hook is too many.
back at camp, upon further inspection, found that a large chunk hit and damaged the battery box, destroyed my new battery and put a sizable dent in the gas tank sump, also noticed that the Farr Engine mount has some cracks in it, I'm thinking the cracks are a result of powder coating, I believe the vibrations shook through the thickness of the coating and then that in turn made the Engine mount nuts loose which could not do it any good.

the good news is that the Gas tank is only dented, no hole or gouges and since the battery was only bought days earlier from Walmart I figured there was no harm in seeing if they would exchange or refund, to my surprise, full refund

And now for repairs, need to get another clutch, trying to contact Farr to see if they have a new mount to purchase, I may just end up repairing with doubler plates, battery box, maybe buy another or maybe repair, got to be ready for super bowl weekend! that is the next trip, anyone want to join us you're welcome to.

and I know I still need to upload videos, that will happen by Monday.

Bill you're an easy going guy to not be all wound up over all that. It goes along with the fun of course. Glad a piece of that clutch did'nt find its way at you... that sounds hateful.

Patch em up and head back out.

It would be quite a fluke to make it past the pipe, past the fire wall, it's only thin aluminum but it would slow something down and then it would have to get past the padding in the seat.
I don't thing there is a straight shot.

Yep, fix it and go again, looking at the clutch is is difficult to tell if there was a previous crack or not, I did not re over all the parts to reconstruct.

Here's a picture of the weekend carnage
The old starter got chewed up too, maybe from trying to crank it with the clutch like that? All part of the fun!

Yikes...
Looks like you need some stainless steel magnets, blinker fluid and new muffler bearings.
You’ll build it better, faster and stronger.

Holy f+++ !!!
That's scary looking to me.
That's a lot of damage.

Kuma, sorry to sidetrack here - is there any sand other than Pismo that's not waaaaay passed LA? In my head I thought for some reason there was some sand near Bakersfield but I guess I am mistaken?

That's the price you pay for highly modified vehicles. I used to be like you, highly modified everything to make it faster and better. Nothing puts a bigger grin on your face than when you hit the gas and she takes off like a raped ape.

Pismo would probably be the shortest drive for you but IMO, the dunes there are not good, it is only a nice place to go in the summer to camp on the beach and get away from the heat. next for you would be Dumont, unfortunately season in mid fall to early spring ant it looks like you would have mountains to cross.
there are dunes in Nevada but I am not really familiar with them, I believe they are also a nice place to go but if you want to go to the dunes, make a vacation trip to Glamis or head north in the summer and go to St Anthony's.
Dumont has good dunes, it's just not a large dune area, on the other hand there are non-sand trails to do there too.

No regerts here, just have to make sure to inspect the replacement clutch, I'm going to purchase a spare trans, if the current one survives this season, then I'll do a complete rebuild on it so I can check it's condition, axles are another concern, I need to go on a quest to find an off the shelf replacement if there is such a beast, I'd be ok with using a different hub and longer would be better but I think cutting, sleeving and welding is a good option, Haloraising has that on his LT pilot with good success.

OK, so I have uploaded some of the videos:


https://youtu.be/z5q6trtl_Jw
this is the one that shows the clutch exploding, if you do some freeze framing you can see some of the frag hitting the sand around 9:22


https://youtu.be/LStKgTKwCDY
this and the following are just another ride, the videos are more fun making than watching

https://youtu.be/opeopFid1mQ

https://youtu.be/D3uiKuvWLiI

https://youtu.be/OEThDN5ac08

Please feel free to subscribe to my channel, there are lots of dune videos some old videos of Comp Hill in it's hey day before it was shut down.

I'll have more to come just haven't up loaded yet buggy is next, I also loaded some from a Pilot Oddy trip to Pismo, going to post on another thread

I lived in Bakersfield and there are no dunes North of LA other than Pismo unless you want to come up to my neck of the woods in Northern Nevada or go even farther to Oregon.

Rand

the actual Youtube panes are not working for me, that's why I included the url link, to same space I'll just use the link:
here are some videos looking at the pilot from the front, it was just a slow cruiser but you get an idea of how the front end is working:
https://youtu.be/WQO9_J6DA1A

https://youtu.be/XnO_E2PNAr4

https://youtu.be/ih1L_LEcHKk

https://youtu.be/cx4bvdgACvc

all these are pretty similar but it's a great view of the dunes!

and here is the video of the Extreme Baja Kart (EBK) with the hayabusa Engine, second video is the one that ends with a broken axle, sorry on all these videos I didn't do any editing, too time consuming, that is what the slide bar is for
https://youtu.be/94Td10z65nY

you may need to duck to keep from getting sand in your eyes I wish they had sand goggles 30 years ago, best thing then was goggle oil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqhViqy0aU8&feature=youtu.be

I believe I found the cause of the failure, I post a pic in the next post

on the buggy axle failure, I'm reasonable sure that it was a seal failure in the u joint that led to a bearing cup failure and then all hell broke loose, there was no indication until it let go

so the good news is that I finally replaced the axle on the busa buggy, I moved the limit straps so the angle isn't so much, that cost me about 3-4 inches of travel, car ran good all weekend, this was last weekend.
the bad news, I blew up the outer bearing on the input shaft on the pilot, I am hoping parts are still usable at first look the case does not appear to be cracked and things still turned and it's not making noise, keeping my fingers crossed.
I have a spare ready to go in, I think I am going to make a support doe the driven clutch off the back of the pilot frame.