ST1100 - She's Giving Up Smoking Like A Cigar But Now She's Hot!

Uncle Phil said:
The worst thing you can do to a ST1100 is let it sit. ;)
Letting it sit will only make it worse and probably cause other issues.
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Agreed, when subjected to long term sitting. In this case we are talking weeks, maybe a few months at the outside, before you get back to working on it. I don't think that this qualifies as sitting. If it did, every motorcycle up here would be in a world of hurt every winter when we let them sleep for many months at a time with nary a complaint. Come spring, they fire up and are ready to roll.

As I have often read from a wise man on this forum- it's your call, I have no skin in this game.
 
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Andrew Shadow said:
Agreed, when subjected to long term sitting. In this case we are talking weeks, maybe a few months at the outside. I don't think that this qualifies as sitting. If it did, every motorcycle up here would be in a world of hurt every winter when we let them sleep for many months at a time with nary a complaint. Come spring, they fire up and are ready to roll.

As I have often read from a wise man on this forum- it's your call, I have no skin in this game.
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My old buddy had a 73 750 4 Honda, bike I learned to ride on, it dropped a jet out of one of the carbs and had very similar symptoms ?
 
Andrew Shadow said:
Agreed, when subjected to long term sitting. In this case we are talking weeks, maybe a few months at the outside, before you get back to working on it. I don't think that this qualifies as sitting. If it did, every motorcycle up here would be in a world of hurt every winter when we let them sleep for many months at a time with nary a complaint. Come spring, they fire up and are ready to roll.

As I have often read from a wise man on this forum- it's your call, I have no skin in this game.
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The problem is one of those things called a 'Round Tuit' ;)
Since I can ride all year (and do) it could sit for a really long time before I got one of those.
It's sort of like a whipping - needful in most cases but glad when it's over ... :biggrin:
 
Had this on my riding mower earlier in the summer. It just suddenly began smoking enough to put a 1950's mosquito fogger to shame. Broken lower piston ring, sometimes called the oil-scraper. Since it was nine years old and due for an engine overhaul in my opinion, I replaced it with a new one. Not so easy to check this on an ST.
 
Oldbikefixr said:
Had this on my riding mower earlier in the summer. It just suddenly began smoking enough to put a 1950's mosquito fogger to shame. Broken lower piston ring, sometimes called the oil-scraper. Since it was nine years old and due for an engine overhaul in my opinion, I replaced it with a new one. Not so easy to check this on an ST.
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That's my hunch - which will require pulling the head to verify.
IIRC, the 'oil scrapper' one is the bottom ring of all the rings.
I may get lucky and see something as I am 'deinstalling' the engine, but I'm not gonna hold my breathe on that one! ;)
 
Uncle Phil said:
That's my hunch - which will require pulling the head to verify.
IIRC, the 'oil scrapper' one is the bottom ring of all the rings.
I may get lucky and see something as I am 'deinstalling' the engine, but I'm not gonna hold my breathe on that one! ;)
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After you swapped the plugs, and fogged your garage for bugs, how did they look? Better question, did one or more look like they were burning oil to help you ID the bad cylinder?
 
If it's not gas I would run compressed air into a cylinder through the plug hole and pull the valve springs and check the valve stem seals. Easy to do, just make sure both valves are closed. A normal procedure. Not being able to maintain pressure in the cylinder would be very telling.
 
Could it be a carb jet that's got an issue... just throwing more darts
 
Phil, it seems to me that a week's work swapping engines is a big job. We've just done a few threads in which someone has said don't throw parts at a bike hoping to solve the problem, do the trouble shooting first. Don't we have some mechanics here who know (or should) what the causes of this problem could be? Do you know a car mechanic you trust you could ask? My take away from this discussion is: (i've just listed what I saw other's suggested)
1. Running full rich
2. Carb issue
3. Leaking valve seals
4. Leaking valve guide(s)
5. Sticking rings
6. Broken oil ring

Ok, I might have missed a couple, I did not reread 100 posts. But Occam's Razor points toward the simple solutions first, and clearly #3 thru 6 involve major work. Isn't more testing, checking in order before you dive into an engine swap?

My thoughts - the exhaust crossover will hide the source and you will get smoke from both pipes if only one bank or one cylinder is the problem, so you are back to pulling plugs/compression or leakdown test territory. (I don't know if a leakdown test will implicate valve guides or a broken oil sweep ring.)

Did you do any service to the bike between the good ride on it and this problem? What's the oil level in the crankcase? (I think you said no oil consumption so that means its spot on.)

Once you pull the engine, you are not likely to find an easy solution because you cannot try something and then just fire up the engine. It will be a full on teardown. On the other hand, a 20K mile engine is an attractive swap.
 
Computek said:
Goldwings (I have 2, a 1200 and a 1500) and they both smoke on the “left” side when put up on side stand.
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My '77 GL1000 started doing that when I got a lot of miles on the clock. I noticed it didn't happen while on the center stand so I parked that way when ever possible unless it would be parked for only a short time.
 
I know that you have probably check everything but this just came to mind after seem post #101. By chance is your choke/enricher closed? When I had my 1991 ST1100 I rode like 40 miles with the choke nearly fully closed wondering why it wasn't running right and had smoke.
 
In my past days, I was a pretty serious 'wrench' on car engines - building, 'enhancing' them, etc. so I'm pretty aware of basic principles of ICE engines.
Swapping an engine (now that I know how to get it back in) is not really that big of a deal compared to trying to pull a head on a ST1100 in place.
I'm past the point of 'debugging' as there is oil on the end of one or more of the plugs after all the 'treatments', fresh gas, etc.
Oil does not get into the compression section of a cylinder unless the valve guides are bad, the rings are worn/broken or there is a leaking head gasket ...
...unless a space alien slipped in while I was gone and removed the spark plugs and shot oil in the cylinders. ;)
None of that is easy to fix and none of that is easy to find unless you do some serious tearing down of the engine.
The engine is smoking really bad and getting worse at this point.
I can spend the next six months trying to figure it out or I can swap the engines and get her back on the road.
At this point in my life, getting her back on the road as soon as possible is more important to me than figuring out the 'why'.
Riding time is something I know that sooner or later may come to end for me so maximizing it is my priority while I can.
I hope to leave this world riding right up to my end, but that is something I do not have ultimate control over.
Also, having had over 20 different surgeries, I realized a long time ago that the next could be my 'last' one.
I have learned that "I can always make more money, but I can't make more time."
So the 'shortest' time path with the best probability of success is what I look at to determine what I will do.
I learned something a long time ago in the computer business - you get it working and worry about the 'why' when it is convenient. :biggrin:
I may stumble upon something as I do the 'removal' process - but I don't hold out a lot of hope.
My hunch at this point is that (and I've seen this before) the 'wear' process from the PO and me differed greatly and caused the issue.
I've seen that on both of the ST1100s that I purchased used as I run them pretty hard.
On one, the oil pump started failing and I had to have it replaced - very unusual for a ST1100.
I do appreciate all the concern and the suggestions (and I've tried some of them) but I've got three rides in the next 4 weeks and I'd like to have this one up and running for at least one of them since it has really good tires on it. :biggrin:
 
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