Failed air filter

Boomslang wrote:

If you have the budget then rebuild the whole motor. New main bearings and seals, new big end and small end bearings, new piston kit and...

If you have the budget then rebuild the whole motor. New main bearings and seals, new big end and small end bearings, new piston kit and then you'll have pretty much a new motor that you can rely on. Also freshen up the water pump ( impeller) seal and shifter seal and all relevan  o'rings/ seals whilst the motor is open.

You are already asking if there can be "premature" wear on the crank (all moving parts)

The answer is yes. If there was dirt (dust) sucked in from the faulty filter then I have no doubt that some damage occurred. To what extent you'll never know until the motor is open. 

If you don"t have the budget for a rebuild, then flush the motor out with some gasoline to get rid of any foreign matter that could be in there as a result from that air filter. Check for wear on the big end bearing and conrod if /when you freshing up the top end, if you opt for that route.

You also mention wanting to freshing the top end up, that's good, but now you'll have new compression again on a tired bottom end.

Like I said, if you can get the $$$ together for a full rebuild, then do it. It will save you $$$ in the long run. Furthermore, there is the safety issue to consider...a motor shitting itself whilst riding...or even worse, on a face of a jump is never good. 

Preventative maintainence is extremely important. Buy a bunch of air filters and always ride the bike with a clean one. If you do that, you'll get more quality life out of your motor.

Good luck, mate.

SomeoneSuperRandom wrote:

Hi all, I've got a new (to me) as of last fall 2016 TE 125 that I've put some decent hours on. It's still got the...

Hi all, I've got a new (to me) as of last fall 2016 TE 125 that I've put some decent hours on. It's still got the stock top end in it around 70 hours, and I'm planning on switching that out very soon. I went to do some work after a recent ride, and found a small gap in the air filter. The air boot has a decent amount of small, granular desert dust in it, but nothing pooled up. Just looking through the exhaust port, the cylinder is just fine, and the piston has all the normal wear. 

In these situations, is the crank in danger of premature wear and failure? Is it worth doing anything more than a heavy overhauled top end? I'd love to hear opinions on what might be the best options for preventive maintenance.

Cheers

lostboy819 wrote:

Not sure what the point is of looking up the exhaust port as no way to tell if everything looks fine. If you passed dirt through...

Not sure what the point is of looking up the exhaust port as no way to tell if everything looks fine. If you passed dirt through the motor it did accelerate the wear on everything, so rebuild it now before it blows up and ruins the cylinder.  

crusher773 wrote:

Do yourself a favor too if you haven't done the carb mod with the slide and everything it will make that bike run so much better.

Smuffers wrote:

Try and run what comes out of that motor through a fine screen or filter of some sort and then you can see what was floating...

Try and run what comes out of that motor through a fine screen or filter of some sort and then you can see what was floating around in there. Might give you some idea as to what kind of damage was done. 

crusher773 wrote:

We put a 150 kit in ours there was a thread I think on KTMtalk or here that gave all the mods with the slide change...

We put a 150 kit in ours there was a thread I think on KTMtalk or here that gave all the mods with the slide change and notch and jetting specs ours has been great since.