thirdgen's massive F4i rebuild thread.... pix intense!!

[thirdgenlxi]

Well... I just uploaded 265 pictures to photobucket, won't be posting every one of them, but just be warned.... this is gonna be a looooong thread with ALOT of pictures!! LOL

Anyways, some may remember I went down back in Dec and the whole ordeal that followed. For those that don't.... back on Dec 17th I was on my way to work and while veering off on a road to the left, I hit a patch of oil/diesel fuel/antifreeze/something slippery, and lowsided at about 25 mph. All was fine until the bike slid into the curb, did a little highside and then rolled over itself into the grass. I got right up, not even so much as a scratch on me, thank god (leathers FTMFW!!), went over to the bike and it was completely covered in engine oil. Not a good sign already!

Luckily another guy from work was several cars behind me when this happened, so he saw it and recognized it as being me, and pulled right into the parking lot there and made sure I was OK. Luckily he had his pickup and an empty bed, so we lifted the bike into the bed of his truck and off to work we went





He gave me a ride home after work and we unloaded the bike into the garage. I was able to get a little better analysis of the damages







Right side didn't really get much at all




Swingarm got gouged up pretty good




Now for the really bad part.... when it slid, the flywheel took a hard and direct hit with the curb




Took a good size chunk out of the lower crankcase




All that was left of my stator cover


Definitely not a good sign there!


A couple weeks later, after much persuasion with a pry bar I was able to get the mangled stator out of the flywheel. Thanks to a generous member of 600rr.net for loaning me the OEM flywheel puller tool, I was finally able to remove the flywheel and inspect behind it. I was quite sad with what I found

Crank was definitely bent


The crack in the case was also worse that I had originally seen


Several weeks went by waiting for the insurance adjuster to come out to the house and look at it. I already knew they were gonna total it, but it was pretty much my only option at this point. They finally came out and looked at it, then had to wait another couple of weeks for them to process everything. Contrary to everyone else telling me "don't bother, it's not worth anything anyways", I'm glad I didn't listen, cuz the insurance company thought otherwise. They valued the bike at $4400, subtract $500 deductible and we're at $3900.... then the buy back was $600, and I went ahead and did just that. So I kept the bike, and got a check for $3300. For a bike with 177k miles on it, can't really complain at all

I was in the process of moving at the time, so I didn't really have much of any time to work on it, plus I didn't want to tear it apart before I moved, then end up having to move it in pieces and loosing stuff. I moved the bike over to my new residence and it sat there for another couple of weeks. My buddy Matt's boss down in Greenville, SC is an engineer with a full machine shop, CNC machines, welders, lathes, etc. He said he might be able to fix it, so he said bring it on down and we'll tear it open and have a look

Finally by the end of Feb, I was settled into my new place and had some time to work on the bike. I quickly got to work tearing it down





Rafters and ratchet straps are a godsend!!