Engine woes

[WILDECELT]

Hi all
I was wondering if you could give me some advice?. bit of a long post sry
Well a few days ago i knackered my engine ( hornet 600) the oil light came on and i checked the levels and all seemed ok untill the next day i rode it to work and caput!! i thought it was a faulty wiring prob , i posted before and stinkwheel suggested it might have been a oil compression prob ? but i was wondering was it caused by a earlier because what happened is six weeks ago i went on a tour of the UK with my pal from the states, prior to the tour i done a oil change but being heavy handed i cracked the sump nut, desperate i ordered a belly pan for delivery the next day ( as we were leaving on a monday and this happened on the friday) so i took delivery of the belly pan but i could not remove my manifold in order to replace it as the retaining nuts where knackered. So i took it to my local garage who drilled out the bolts, they then informed me that the belly pan i had was for a CBR600 and was slightly more shallow than the one for the Hornet so in order to fit it they shortened the stem of my oil pick up pump.
What i'm wondering would this have caused my engine to blow as the compression in the engine had been altered due to less oil circulating?.
Also another question the mechanic at my local garage said he had a engine for the Hornet ( 17000 miles on it ) which he would sell to me and fit but what questions should i be asking as to the milage of the engine etc...
Thanks

[TUG]

maybe it was too short and didnt sit in the oil when the bike is running and circulating the oil, and in this lack of oil caused higher friction till it returned to be pumped round again? or is this "belly panel" a sump? bottom of the engine?

maybe way off but someone on here will know.
sorry to hear about your hornet,
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Haz ER-5, innit!

[bladerunner]

If by belly pan you mean the sump. I'd be worried as if they had to cut down the pick up pipe for the oil pump to fit it that will mean that you will be carrying less oil than normal.

I.e. if the difference on the oil sightglass between high and low level is say 15mm and they cut more than 15mm off the pipe to make it fit then even if the sight glass says your oil is full to the max then in reality your under the minimum level

Also like you say it would also mean that if your still going by the sight glass then you will also be carrying less oil than normal which means that you are running the risk of the engine pumping the sump dry before the oil has had a chance to re circulate which sounds like a good possibility.

The oil light is a little more than useless as they take so little pressure to turn off that unless you have total catastrophic oil failure they dont come on. I.e. say it takes 4psi to turn the oil light off it takes at least 5 times that to lube the cams and crank etc and chances are if you were running out of oil that the dribbles that were being returned from the top end would have been enough to keep the oil light out most of the time

[prawny1]

Sounds to me like oil starvaton has knackered your engine mate, sorry!

You are going to have to change your engine, It would be wise to keep the old engine for spares as there will be plenty of stuff salvagable.

When the oil pipe was cut down, was the strainer/filter cut off?
As this would allow your bike to suck any carbon/ larger particles into the oil pump, damaging the pump and causing oil pressure problems which will have damaged your crank bearings and journals.
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hellkat wrote:

Some people are only alive cos its against the law to kill them.

[instigator]

[prawny1]

Thats what happens when you ignore an oil light, especialy after having parts fitted/modified that arn't for your model,

Not to familier with these engines but for sure they will have different pickup pipes and sump baffling due to the difference in shape/size, And if the modified pipe didn't sit where the cbr pipe did oil starvation is quite possible especialy when cornering the fact that the overall oil capasity was reduced aswell can olny make things worse.
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hellkat wrote:

Some people are only alive cos its against the law to kill them.

[veeeffarr]

Have you told the garage this?

[WILDECELT]

Hey thanks for all your replys
Well if you read my earlier post you can see i nuked a hornet Engine in reply to Toby R ( other post) I haven't told the garage as it was about six weeks ago and though what they did seems like the likely cause of my probs it will be hard to prove i guess, and i'd only ever been to them once..
Well i'm picking the bike up tommorow with a newish ( 17.000miles) engine fitted in all it's going to cost me £500
Well what i wanted to ask was how do i know this newly fitted engine has done 17.000 miles is their anyway i can get proof and what sort of documentation should i recieve with it and do i have to inform the DVLA because i suppose the engine number will be different
And lastly do i get to start my own club as i've killed a Hornet engine don't know why i'm so positive i should be gutted well
thanks