1985 Big Red 250es kick start locked up

[Sperdue]

I finally got me a big red that ran! Three days later, Now it don’t! Engine seemed to purr like a kitten(idle and all). Rode the kids around a bit then I couldn’t help it and got it on two wheels a little. It started making some kind of noise in the motor and turned off when I stopped.

It got pretty hot as I was putting around the yard. I let it sit to cool down. Kicked it and started for a few seconds but cut off. Since then I can’t budge the kick starter. The battery is charging overnight to see if electric start will turn it over. Jump starting did nothing (wheels locked up when I put it in gear). Have I locked this thing up? Kick start would not work with spark plug out either. Is there any other test I can do to figure this thing out?

[gimmeamidget]

how is the oil level? sounds siezed.

[ps2fixer]

Was the engine noise like a squeaking sound, a knock, clucks, ticks? There's a few things that could have happened but it sounds like you'll have to take one of the side covers off and see if you can rotate the engine backwards. Probably easiest to pull the right cover. There's a bolt on the furthest forward shaft (crank shaft). If it rotates backwards I'd guess it threw a rod. I'm not sure if these are an interference motor, but another common thing could be the timing chain skipped timing and the piston slapped into the valves and they broke off and locked up the engine. As stated above, it could be seized up too, crank or piston, which would mean you can't turn the engine backwards.

If you haven't dug into an engine before, watch a video on how to change the one way clutch bearing, it would cover the same steps needed to check the engine out, just stop when they pull the crank bolt out. Good luck, kind of sounds like it won't be a simple repair, but maybe I'm missing something. I have some of the parts if you want to fix it with used parts (crank, piston, cylinder and such), or you could go the more expensive route and rebuild it, like if the crank is seized, buy a used one and have it rebuilt or see if new is available. Could also look into aftermarket pistons if you wanted to increase the compression ratio (power). Clearly the first step is to identify what happened, lack of oil/lubrication would probably be worst case or a thrown rod with crank case damage.

[Sperdue]

The oil level was good. I drained the oil afterwards just to see if it looked bad but nothing jumped out. It may have been a little runny or not as thick as I would’ve thought. I’m not a motor guy but I’ll do some more investigating and let y’all know what I find. Thanks.

[Sperdue]

The sound was a kind of squeaking noise in the motor. Would running it hot cause this? I was just putting around for quite some time but it idled so good before that. Is that my luck, putting around for a few hours now I may need a new top end?

[ps2fixer]

I don't think a healthy 250es engine would have issues even idling in place for 3 hours, it would get hot but not hot enough to cause damage. Squeaking isn't good as that's normally a metal to metal sound, as in lack of oil.

Here's an idea of the squeak noise from the rings seizing up to the cylinder. This is an engine already seized up, so pretty much an extreme case for the noise but should be similar sound for most engines. The 250es Honda engines have an oil pump in them, so it's possible the pump could fail, oil filter plugged, etc to starve the engine of oil even when full. If you drained the oil and looked at it in a good light, you might be able to see small metallic flakes, kind of like metallic paint. Also color tells a little bit about the engine too, or atleast how long the oil has been in the engine. Clear amber is like new, and charcoal black that you can't see through is majorly over due for oil. I generally change my oil once it gets to be more of a dark amber/brown color, but I'm sure everyone has their own method to choose when to change their oil. Honda's service manual does it based on time (every 30 days), but that doesn't take into account daily riding 8hr per day vs 1 ride in the whole month.

https://youtu.be/ajx0JD-caBA?t=39

AL metal is like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEqDwIpX2SI

Here's steel metal flakes, notice the nice shiny look. Also that oil looks nasty way over due, he couldn't even see the metal flake through the oil. He must be slightly blind, he says there's 3 flakes, but he's only seeing the MONSTER huge ones. The small flakes are what I'm talking about, the big ones are major damage, he has a major rod knock, he shouldn't even be driving the car should have had it towed right to his ship/dad's place or where ever he planned to fix it to reduce other possible issues.

https://youtu.be/gZRL-ZXaAxM?t=248

Another trick to check the oil for metal flakes is to filter it through a paper towel.

Here's another example from a transmission, the 250es engine shares the engine and transmission fluid and a little metal flake is normal/typical, the bigger chunks aren't exactly a good sign big time for a smaller engine. Those chunks of metal came from somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7eOysz_WuM

Anyway, to answer your question on running hot causing the squeaking, I'd blame the root cause on lack of oil (guessing) and the heat is a side effect if you noticed it was hotter than normal. Majorly overheating an engine can cause similar issues though, but my experience with that is more liquid cooled engines and like if a water pump failed so there was little to no heat being removed from the cylinder. In an air cooled engine, the fins are always extracting heat even when not moving, just not very effectively (faster you go, the more effective they are).

On your current situation, I'd say to pull the right side cover and try to turn the engine over. If it's locked up there then it basically needs a rebuild. The first video kind of shows you can bring an engine back to life after a ring seize, but it is likely to smoke and have low compression. The better option would be to have the cylinder bored, new over sized piston, check crank bearings, cam etc but all of that is time/effort, or $$$ if you pay a shop to do it. Another option could be to buy a used known good engine. In your local ads you might get lucky and find one for $200-400ish or ebay is always an option. I personally like having parts machines around, so for those kinds of prices I'd rather buy a whole machine non running and hope the internals of the engine are good. The good thing about having it rebuilt is you know it's back up to spec and the engine will probably last another 30+ years if done right and is taken care of.

[gimmeamidget]

You stated the oil appeared not as thick as normal. is it possible it had water or gas in the oil rendering it not effective?

[gimmeamidget]

Im still thinking seized. I have got them unstuck with some good oil in the spark plug hole for a few days to soak and working the engine back and forth until the piston moves freely. It will run again but smoke ALOT.

[Homeless Dave]

Im gonna say the oiling system failed somewhere. definitely a top end seize. Would not be surprised if the bottom end is bad too. Getting it running is possible, but it might not run well and it wont run very long. my opinion is just to pull the engine and rebuild it completely. bore out, new rings, new bearings and refresh anything that doesn't look good.

[Sperdue]

Took right side cover off and engine moved free forward but won’t rotate backwards. It’s been dark when I’ve been able to look at oil but I don’t see any flakes. I usually change the oil first thing when I buy something like this but the oil always looked fresh in this thing. Looking like maybe the oil pump failed. Is that common? I had been on two wheels ( one back and one front ) playing when the noise started so I don’t know if my leaning it over caused the oil to not circulate. Guess I’ll learn how a small engine works now.

[ps2fixer]

Interesting, so the engine isn't locked up but the transmission is. Just to validate, the center of the front clutch moves freely in one direction like via the bolt right? The bell/outer part of that clutch is tied to the transmission. Between the two there's a 1 way bearing, so going one way it slips, and the other way it locks the two together (for engine breaking and kick starting). If the transmission side is locked up, that's something I've never seen on a Honda yet and not super sure what could cause that except for like something metal getting wedged in the transmission gears, and even so it should rotate freely in neutral, when the transmission is in any gear, the outer part of the bell is tied to the rear wheels to move.

Not sure if anyone else has any good trouble shooting ideas, but my first idea is to unbolt the secondary clutch (the one further back with the bring gear on it that the kick starter gear runs off from) and just release the spring tension on the clutch plates so it can slip then try to turn the outer section of the clutch (either one). If it's internal in the engine transmission, the output part should spin with a bit of drag from the clutches/engine turning over if it's the right direction for that. If it's not inside the transmission section you should be able to shift the transmission in gear and push the machine and see the inner part of the rear clutch spin. It's easier to push in higher gears, so 2nd or 3rd might be easier to look and push at the same time. This test atleast isolates the general area where the issue is. The catcher with this is, if it's not the engine, then you should be able to kick start or electric start the engine just fine, but it won't move, but it sounded like the issue is that the engine locked up / seized.

If it's the actual engine part locked up, then it's probably rebuild time. Pull the head off and check the cylinder out, likely has heavy scratch marks on the cylinder wall and I'd assume the rings is what's causing the seize. There's a million ways to go about it, like if it's not sized up too badly, a good breaker bar on a crank bolt and some lube in the cylinder and you might be able to break it free by hand so you can get the piston out of the cylinder. Other tricks I know of is a chunk of wood and a hammer, or leave the head on but remove the cam so both valves will be closed, and pump the cylinder full of grease with an adapter to go in the spark plug hole. If the piston locked up at the bottom of the stroke that won't help much, but I think it's pretty rare for that to happen.

It's possible for the crank and rod to seize together as well, little bit easier to deal with since you can just unbolt the cylinder and pull it off and split the cases to extract the crank. Not sure how common that is for atv engines, the Suzuki 230 my dad had sized up like that full of oil, no warning or anything, not sure what caused it since he traded it away shortly after that.

[Sperdue]

Let me make sure I’m saying this right. I did not see the bolt you are referring to. I can spin the flywheel (I think) and then the other round thing (the clutch?) rotates with the flywheel. It rotates clockwise (on right side of motor) but not backwards (counterclockwise). I can’t get the wheels to move at all in any gear too. So it’s sounding like top end now? Sorry I’m clueless about engines. I’m used to doing routine maintenance on dirt bikes but no motor work.

[ps2fixer]

The fly wheel is on the other side of the engine, the clutch is big enough to basically be a fly wheel though lol. Just to make sure we are on the right side of the engine, this is a video that shows the primary (front) clutch. He happens to spin the part I'm talking about, the center part spins with the engine's crank, the other part is pretty much tied to the transmission.

https://youtu.be/xpSd2wesr9U?t=7

I don't think I have a 250es engine handy around to really take photos of the internals.

Also, left and right is always from the viewpoint as if you're driving the machine, same rule applies to cars, the driver's door is the Left Front Door, atleast for USA models (right hand drive is a thing in other countries too).

[Sperdue]

I found a gear that’s been broken. I started taking the left side cover off and found a gear that has several broken teeth. This is the black cover and is connected to the starter. What would be my next steps? I can’t seem to figure out how to post pictures of it. Hope this is a good sign.

[ps2fixer]

If you're on pc, go to manage attatchments, browse and choose the image and hit upload. Wait for the upload and the image will show up in the bottom then you can close the window and post your message/thread and it will show up at the bottom. You can do fancy formatting with the "insert" button but no point in making it complicated.

If you're on mobile, I've seen most people suggest the app, tapatalk or something like that. No clue how images are added through that, I never use cellphones for internet browsing.

[Sperdue]

Here is the picture of the broken gear. Would this had locked up the kick start. I found another post that said this gear was broke and his motor was still good. Should I replace these bad parts and try to fire it up?



260433
260434
260435

[ps2fixer]

That's the gear I was thinking of but wasn't sure. That's for the electric start. There's a one way bearing on the fly wheel that should make that gear not effect anything. If you pull the whole side cover off, you can try to spin the actual motor over. The kick starter gear and clutches are under the other side's cover.

The teeth of that gear had to have ended up somewhere, I'd defo say change your oil as soon as you figure out what's up and hopefully that pushes the broken teeth out. If/when you pull the side cover off, I'd say to run a magnet through the engine on the bottom to collect anything there, there's some holes and such to get into the transmission section with out splitting cases. One of those magnets on a stick would work well.

You can test the one way bearing how the engine is in those pics, the gear still in the engine, try to spin that both directions, one directly it should spin freely and the other direction it should lock up (tries to turn engine over). Not sure if you could get enough torque on the gear to turn the engine over normally or not to tell if the crank is seized up for some reason.

Also when you reinstall the starter gears cover, be sure to use a gasket, if I remember right it's too tight tolerance to not use a gasket (a lot of the Honda covers are like this).

[Sperdue]

After taking the left side cover off I found the pieces of the teeth that broke off. It looks like the engine turns over now. I can put it all together and the kick start is free now. It turns the flywheel when pushed down. I seen a video showing the one way clutch bearing that went bad and caused the starter gears to break so I guess that’s what happened to me. So am I safe to replace one way bearing and wore out gears, put new gaskets on and try to fire it up. I will definitely change the oil if it cranks and circulates.

[ps2fixer]

Yea sounds like the one way bearing must have seized up on the shaft somehow or it's installed backwards. Does the gear around the fly wheel spin freely in one direction?

If you leave the starter gears all out (the other gear I'd remove too) you could put it back together and use kick start only till you get the parts in. It wouldn't hurt to buy a matching set of gears for the starter and replace them as a set as they can interchange with other models but sometimes the teeth count is different, but the physical spacing is the same.

In my mind I wouldn't think the teeth that broke off would have happened based on the one way bearing failing, I would expect the gear that goes directly to the fly wheel to get the bulk of the damage as it has the highest torque to overcome spinning the starter. It's geared down so the starter can turn the motor, so revering the logic and having the engine spin the starter, it's very very high geared.

Glad you found the fly wheel spins freely now, atleast the core engine isn't locked up, so much cheaper to repair and should be simpler to deal with =).

[Sperdue]

She's alive! Thanks p2fixer! I put everything back together, leaving the starter gears out, and she runs just fine. I will have to get some money up to buy me some new parts now. I plan on replacing the starter gears and starter, one way bearing and gaskets. My gear shifter spindle is stripped so I may look into replacing that too while i have it broke down. Thanks again for all of you help p2fixer.

[ps2fixer]

No problem, glad you got the issue isolated so you can atleast ride the machine if you want =).