Engine Trouble help

[sapphireblack]

So here is my issue and need some advise please .I have a 2006 Ninja 250 . Bought it used about 14 months ago . Knew it had fairing damage but that wasn't a deal breaker for the price I had paid for it .
Basically took my bike to have it looked at due to smell of smoke and slight oil on the engine . This is what I was told :
Bad piston rings ,
worn and leaking ,
not holding compression up part of engine ,
pressurizing lower part of engine and blowing oil out thru air filter !



So here my deal ...is it worth fixing or just get rid of it , not worth the cost and the time ?

[jkv45]

It's very possible they didn't diagnose the problem correctly.

How many miles are on it?

Does it blow smoke out of the exhaust when running/riding?

Does the oil look good, and stay at the proper level?

They will all pump some amount of oil into the airbox when run at higher RPMs, so that's not uncommon.

Did they offer to buy it for $100 "as it is"...

EDIT: This will probably get moved to the "1986 - 2007 Ninja 250R Tech Talk" section.

[Triple Jim]

Jay's right about not trusting that diagnosis 100%. A compression test, not hard or expensive to do at home, would answer the question. Watch the oil level through the sight glass for a couple tankfuls and see what you learn, and if it's dropping more than a reasonable amount, you can go from there.

[sapphireblack]

#1 miles : 20078
#2 no smoke out of the exhaust
#3 no it does not look good , had oil change on it , and it does not stay at proper level. ( after oil change with in 2 months , you had to tilt bike to see the oil in the window. ) and yes i am very careful about maintenance )
#4 and no offer to buy at a cheap price .
#5 compression test came back 1/4 of what it is suppose to be . 12.4:1 is what is suppose to be , under 4 is what it is coming back .
And we have been watching this issue for awhile , before we noticed actual oil; on the outside of the motor.

My options as of now : Take out motor and have pistons and rings and such re done , or just up grade to another bike .

I was told the value of the bike as it stands now is 1350 , but to have it fixed at a shop would be a grand .

just wanted to know if anyone has experienced this kind of problem or close to this .

[DannoXYZ]

Personally I haven't seen piston problems on many bikes. Most of time, low-compression is due to valve-adjustment since clearance gets tighter and tighter with wear. Skipping valve-clearance maintenance is common cause of burnt exhaust-valves and resultant low-compression.

Shop should've done leak-down test in addition to compression-test. This will tell actual source of low-compression, rings or valves (more likely).

External oil-leak most likely not related. Someone did sloppy job of putting covers back on last time. Just need valve-cover gasket or side-case gaskets.

There's parts bike on CL now for $275 with much fewer miles than yours. Most likely engine will be in better condition and it takes all of 2-3hrs to swap engine. Not only will you get engine, but an entire bike for spares!

[Triple Jim]

Originally Posted by sapphireblack

#2 no smoke out of the exhaust

It's hard to believe it has bad rings with no smoke

#3 no it does not look good , had oil change on it , and it does not stay at proper level. ( after oil change with in 2 months , you had to tilt bike to see the oil in the window. ) and yes i am very careful about maintenance )

How many miles in that two months? That doesn't sound like a terrible amount of consumption, but then it depends on how many miles it took. Don't let it get down to where you have to tilt the bike to see the oil level, add as necessary to keep it between the marks.

#5 compression test came back 1/4 of what it is suppose to be . 12.4:1 is what is suppose to be , under 4 is what it is coming back .

That's a strange way to give you the compression reading. It's normally given in PSI. In any case, if the compression is really low, the first place I'd look is the valve adjustment. These engines are notorious for having the valve clearances tighten up slowly, and once the clearance is gone, the valves don't close and compression will be way down. If caught early enough, there may not be valve and valve seat damage and an adjustment will bring the compression back up.

And we have been watching this issue for awhile , before we noticed actual oil; on the outside of the motor.

You should try to determine where the oil is coming from. A thorough cleaning helps, and sometimes dusting with talcum power makes the leak show up better.

My options as of now : Take out motor and have pistons and rings and such re done , or just up grade to another bike .

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion until the problem is better diagnosed.

[jkv45]

^ I'm with TJ.

Oil levels will drop with normal use, so you need to keep an eye on it and add regularly if needed. Find the source of the external oil leak. Clean the oil from the airbox.

Clean the air filter, and probably change the oil and oil filter.

Because it isn't smoking, I'm not buying the bad rings diagnosis.

Don't give up on it yet. If you don't have anyone that can help you do the work yourself, I would find another shop to do the maintenance items that should be done like valve adjustment, carb sync, etc.

These engines are pretty tough. We bought one with about 20K on it that ran - even with oil that looked like dirty gas and gas that looked like dirty water. After some basic maintenance we put over 5000 trouble-free miles on it. Most of it over 10,000 RPMs. No problem. I'm sure the compression was a bit low, and it would use some oil, but it still ran just fine.

This link has a ton of "how to" info - https://faq.ninja250.org/wiki/Ninja250_Howto

[DannoXYZ]

Another possibility for low-compression can be oil-rings are clogged (not worn). I've seen many bikes and cars that have had non-synthetic dino oil used (cheapo on-sale stuff). These mineral oils do not have high-temp resistance (flash-point) of full-synthetic oil and can burn easier. And they burn into coal-like deposit that'll clog rings and reduce oil-drainage and compression. Best to use a full-synthetic oil for higher flash-point and lower NOACK properties (low ash production).

Might also want to try piston-soak with 50/50 mix of ATF/acetone. Then use some Redline SL-1 cleaner (1/2 bottle per tank). This is one of the few fuel-system cleaners that has PEA and really works well to remove dried-gas deposits from carbs and burn-oil deposits from valves and piston-rings.

I did this on my wife's Corolla (1ZZ engine well-known for clogged oil-rings). I'll take pictures of borescope images on next engine I work on. It went from dark carbon piston-tops to shiny silver where I could see the numbers casted on pistons! Compression went from 60psi in #2 cylinder back up to factory-spec 220psi.

[sapphireblack]

So let me clarify real quick...
Smoke is coming up from bottom of engine , not bad but there .
I do not see smoke coming from tailpipe . My husband is always behind me on his VFR and has not seen smoke from tail pipe just mid section of bike .

[Triple Jim]

That could be from a leak dripping oil on an exhaust pipe, for example. As I said, the leak needs to be located, and then a cause can be determined.

[DannoXYZ]

Originally Posted by sapphireblack

So let me clarify real quick...
Smoke is coming up from bottom of engine , not bad but there .
I do not see smoke coming from tailpipe . My husband is always behind me on his VFR and has not seen smoke from tail pipe just mid section of bike .

Sounds like you've got two independent un-related issues:

1. external oil-leaks, dripping onto exhaust-pipes and smoking. This is most likely cause of your low oil-levels and needing to top off. As mentioned, clean off engine so that there's absolutely no oil on outside. So clean, you can eat off it. Then idle engine on centrestand, and look closely from bottom up locate where new oil starts dripping out. They make UV fluorescent dyes you can add to oil to help illuminate leaks. Replace seals/gaskets as necessary to fix leak.

2. low compression, most likely from needing valve-adjustment. Lack of smoke out tailpipe would seem to indicate piston-rings are OK. Valve-adjustment is much easier than engine-rebuild and can be done in a couple hours with just taking radiator and valve-cover off.

You're looking at $50 in parts to do this work yourself in 2-4hrs, or about $500 max for qualified shop to do it.

[Triple Jim]

Any update?