followup(Re: [ST] help! balance shaft mystery)

[Brian D <brd@xxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2002 at 01:19:30AM -0500, Brian D wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 10:31:17PM -0500, Michael Young wrote:
> > 
> > The evidence seems pretty compelling. Wouldn't it be worth at least talking
> > to the shop that did the work? Or are they out of business or summat?
> 
> Yes, you're right.  I should at least see what they have to offer.  I
> plan to go down there and talk to them tomorrow.  I don't expect much,
> however, because of a few items.
> 
> One problem is that the bike is out of warranty and has been for almost
> a year now.
> 
> Another is that they didn't do the rebuild when I owned it, but for the
> Previous Owner.  Shortly after getting the bike, while it still had a
> month or two of warranty left, I reported the vibration to them.  One of
> the employees there told me the vibration was due to "different bearings
> used during the rebuild that aren't quite as tight as the original ones"
> and was acceptable.  Unfortunately, I didn't get my complaint or his
> reply in writing or anything.
> 
> A biggie is that I can't prove that the balance shaft IS out of synch,
> since no alignment marks were made.  All I can prove is that the tech
> didn't assemble it correctly, since marking is part of the specified
> procedure.  I can also show that my two marks that I made never align or
> get close to being aligned when rotating the engine by hand.
> 
> Even if they believe it is out of alignment, I don't know what's to keep
> them from saying, "It could have jumped a tooth recently.  So sorry."
> 
> Nevertheless, I will approach them and see what they have to say about
> it.  I feel like I should have something in mind that I expect from
> them.  At the moment, I'm not sure what that is.  An offer to tear it
> down, fix it, and reassemble at no charge would be nice, but I don't
> think that's realistic.  Maybe they will surprise me with some sort of
> discount, or reduced rate, or something.  Not that I could probably
> afford even a reduced rate for the what? 10-15 hours of labor.  Maybe
> I'll ask them if they'll order me the parts/tools needed for the job at
> their cost or a discount.
> 
> It can't hurt, I guess.

Well, thought I'd post a little follow-up.  I went down to Eurosports on
Friday and talked to the owner.  He wasn't really familiar with the
balance shaft on the 955's, but had worked on them on the previous
generation.  We looked over a shop manual together and he agreed that
the balance shaft alignment couldn't be verified without splitting the
cases if there were no marks made when it was assembled.  

One thing he said he wanted to do was talk to the previous owner (that
owned it during the rebuild and now has an 02 Daytona), who comes into
the shop pretty regular and see if he noticed that it started vibrating
after he got it back from the rebuild.  He said the PO hadn't mentioned
it at the time, which he would have expected him to do.  Or the owner
said, maybe it vibrated even before then and was something misbalanced
with parts that were just reused during the rebuild.  

I explained to the owner that I could use all the help I could get.
He said that if they put it back together wrong, they'd make it right
(though I don't know how they'll find out if it was put together wrong
without tearing it apart).  Also, he said if it was something that
started up later, there might still be ways to get it taken care of,
even out of warranty (since the bike was rebuilt so close to when the
warranty ended, I guess).

So I'm waiting for him to get ahold of the PO.  It's not a very
reassuring situation, but it was more than I'd hoped for.  The PO is a
pretty nice guy, so I'm hoping he'll say the right things to help me
out.

Laters,
Brian
- -- 
'99 ST (black)
Dallas, TX

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