1983 Big Red Question

[jbandb]

Hi everyone. I am new to the boards, so I wanted to say hi and ask a few questions about an '83 Big Red 200 that I just recently bought.

I have worked on everything from go karts to automobiles over the last 20 years, but I've kind of run into a problem on this trike that has me a bit confused. Maybe some of you can help me out here.

Anyway, when I got the trike, the motor on it was smoking extremely bad, so I tore it apart to rebuild and found that the head, cam, and upper cam cover were shot due to wear on the cam. This wear had ate into the head surface, upper cam cover surface, and severely grooved the cam race and lobes. Obviously not in any shape to rebuild or use.

So, in the course of finding parts to rebuild this motor, I ran across a complete ready to run motor on an '84 Big Red for a pretty good price, so I decided to buy that instead.

Now here is the problem. The new (well, used actually) '84 motor runs great. Starts right up, has great power, and doesn't smoke at all....at least for the first 10-15 minutes anyway. After that it will start to smoke and seems like it just gets worse with the longer it runs.

So, my question is, what could be causing it to not smoke at all until it is run for more than 10-15 minutes? All the trikes, bikes, etc that I have owned would usually smoke when first started up then come out of it (bad valve guide seals) or smoke all the time right from the moment they were started (bad/broke/stuck piston rings). But this is the first motor I've ran across that doesn't smoke at all at first, but then starts smoking after being ridden for a while.

Any ideas what can cause this? I asked the guy I bought the motor from what he thought, and he just told me it sounded like a valve was carboned up and sticking open and I should put some carbon cleaner in the fuel. ?????? Didn't really get that answer.

As I say, the motor runs great, starts right up with either electric start or on first pull, and doesn't seem to have any power problems. And it is not popping, backfiring, or doing any other things that would indicate a sticking valve, so I just don't see how that could be the problem.

Someone told me that it may be the fact that I am running the exhaust that was on the original badly smoking motor and that it may just be burning off all the excess oil that has accumulated in that pipe once it heats the pipe up enough to make the oil burn/smoke. But if that is possible, then how long would it probably take to burn off that extra oil in the pipe and stop smoking? Could this even be causing the problem?

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas on what could cause this trike to run great and not smoke at all until it has run for 10-15 minutes, then I'd greatly appreciate the info. I'd just like to know if I got burnt with buying this other motor, which was guaranteed to not smoke by the way, and if I should plan on rebuilding it already.

Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to give as much info as I could on the problem.

Thanks in advance for any responses!!

[Daltons200x]

well im not much of a troubleshooter but did u check the oil? maybe w/e oil is in it thins out too much when it gets hot and it starts to burn it? or it could be the oil in the pipe thing but my trike did that and only smoked for about a half hour after i rebuilt the top end

[sandpuppi101]

Welcome aboard,glad too see another BigRed owner in here..I gotta tell ya though that I've been wrenching on trike's alot of year's and never had an issue like that before that I can remember of.Got my wheel's turning thinking of how I can help ya out,but I'm gonna do some more pondering and maybe I can come up with something for ya..

[chrisand4]

"Someone told me that it may be the fact that I am running the exhaust that was on the original badly smoking motor and that it may just be burning off all the excess oil that has accumulated in that pipe once it heats the pipe up enough to make the oil burn/smoke. But if that is possible, then how long would it probably take to burn off that extra oil in the pipe and stop smoking? Could this even be causing the problem?"


That sounds logical to me, could be buildup left over from your old engine, try cleaning out the pipe (not sure of the best way to do this, but if you search the forums I bet you'll find some methods.)

[jbandb]

Ok...here's an update...and another question.

Yesterday I got the Big Red out and ran it for quite a while. Once again, it didn't smoke at first, and started smoking after 5-10 minutes of riding.

But then the smoking kind of started to go away, so I thought maybe it was the pipe burning off excess oil from the old motor, like had been suggested. In fact, it got to where it was barely smoking at all for a while.

Then we took about a 20 minute break, and when I started it back up, it was smoking pretty bad again.

And now I noticed it has started to show signs of leaking oil on the right side of the jug between the jug and case. It's not a horribly bad leak, but definitely noticable.

I don't get it.

Could the smoking problem and the leak between the jug and case be connected?? The reason I ask this is because I also have a 185 that I have had parked for a while as I was waiting to put new gaskets in the top end for a similar reason.

The 185 runs great too, but it started leaking oil very badly between the jug and case and also out of the front right corner between the head and jug, so I parked it. It began smoking very badly as well at the same time the leaks started also.

So I'm starting to see some similarities here. Both previously didn't smoke, but then started smoking about the time the leaks started to appear. Could there be pressure building up inside the motors or something? And could that be forcing oil past the rings and into the cylinder on both bikes causing them to smoke while also pushing oil out of any weak spots in the gaskets resulting in the leaks? Maybe clogged oil passages or something letting the oil pump build too much pressure??

This one has got me. I don't want to waste time and money just randomly throwing parts at both of them trying to fix these problems, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it as I now have both of my trikes down with what appears to be the same problems. Hopefully someone out there has an idea what might be going on.

Sorry for making another long post, but I had a lot of info I wanted to pass along to hopefully better diagnose the problem.

Thanks again!!

[jbandb]

Ok, I know it's obviously been a while since I've worked on trikes, but I've got another dumb question for everyone.

I took the Big Red out again today, and it ran great...still smoking off and on, but that's still under investigation...lol...but I ran across another problem that kind of puzzled me.

I noticed that when I open it up, it seems to want to slip the clutches in 4th and 5th gears. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd don't seem to slip at all, and in fact, I did some small hill climbing with it today, and 1st and 2nd did great.

It's just when I open it up and try to use 4th and 5th gears on top end. Then it will slip really bad as soon as I shift from 3rd to 4th, unless I back off the throttle and let it grab, then it seems to pull better until I shift from 4th to 5th, then it slips again unless I back off.

Any ideas why the clutches would slip just in 4th and 5th gears, but pull great in the other 3 lower gears?

Could they clutches maybe just need adjusted or something?

As always, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[jbandb]

Any thoughts at all on these problems????