Rt 225 -Answers on a post card

[bjhart]

I have just returned from the euro, great rally by the way. I covered around 900 miles with pav trailer, fully loaded and 2 up before breaking down 10 miles from the port on the way home. Bearing in mind the weight and the hills, the scooter did not drop below 50mph with around 50 mpg...amazing!!
Anyway after stripping it yesterday i found one of the cylinder nuts loose inside the head cowling and the other 3 finger tight, (the extra 4 head bolts were all tight). Also the piston had lost both ring pegs which have put 2 scores down the cylinder.

Q1 - could the scooter have given the said performance with the scores down the barrel
Q2 - how on earth, would it have ran so well with nothing holding the cylinder together other than pointing compound.

I am thinking, £the bolts had vibrated loose during the journey, hard acceleration (with a truck aimed at us) broke the seal then the sudden extreme heat loosened the pegs....what do you think?

Any views appreciated.

[Jim Rose]

There has been a problem with the ring pegs on these top ends. Check the inside of the piston and see if the hole for the pegs has been drilled all the way through the piston. If that's the case then the pegs will probably have dropped out with the vibration of the motor and then wandered around in the cylinder doing the harm.

[Sticky]

Glad you guys got back - I stopped for you by the ferry.

Have a word with Scooter Center about the problem and I'm sure they'll look after you. I had the same issue with a ring peg on my RT but they've got a new design of piston now to rectify this problem.

[bjhart]

Thanks guys, very interesting I will check the piston when I get home.
Any idea when the piston design changed, I got my kit in October 2014

[bjhart]

I have now examined the piston and can confirm both ring pegs are in place however a small section around the peg appears to have broken away, maybe the peg moved, the holes are drilled through so would be the old design
Also the ring pegs seem very deep, is that normal?

[Swat]

Aah - your the chap I spoke to at a fuel stop on A3 on Sunday am (i was riding the orange/metalflake silver S type) I was giving my bike a sound thrashing (225 rapido) & was amazed at how well your setup was coping with the weight vs the hills. The scootercentre guys were at the rally & seemed to be genuine enough. Hopefully they'll play a straight bat & get you sorted especially as you providing a moving advert for their kit

Good luck

[Raveydavey]

?...(the extra 4 head bolts were all tight).
Q2 - how on earth, would it have ran so well with nothing holding the cylinder together other than pointing compound.

.

I run the same kit and have often thought, at the right torque you could get away with just those 4 bolts. Especially if the recessed head is sealed well

[bjhart]

SC have asked me to send the barrel / piston back for appraisal, at their cost, I have every confidence in them doing the right thing, based on my earlier experience with their crank, which eventually transpired to be an assembly issue at their sub-contractor

I still can't believe how well the kit performed for nearly 900 miles, and that was in standard format just with a longer stroke crank.....

[peter357bikes]

The ring peg on my RT225 remained in place but must have lost part of it as the ring rode over it and sat on the exhaust port causing it to contact the port where it got all messy and stopped me in my tracks...nice

[bjhart]

Sounds like a similar scenario, did you inform SC?

[Andy B.L.C.]

As Sticky said the Scooter Center has sourced a new piston supplier (Meteor, though I imagine not the heavy fat ringed things of my first 225 top end experimentation in '84... . Following concerns raised by fellow Bristol L.C. club mates I collared, ahem I mean caught up with 1 of the Scooter Center top boys at Geiselwind & he talked me through recent developments (which are on their Farce Book page), & I do believe that they (pistons & C.S.C.) will do the right thing...

[corrado]

From facebook ...

Despite launching new product, we always try to take as much as possible to improve our other products, if there is room for improvement.

Since 2013 we have the RT kits on offer. This is basically an excellent kit. The only weak leak seemed to be the piston and ring peg failures associated with it. Even if the failure rate was very low and not even 2 %, it was every time a hurt to us seeing one of our cylinder kits fail. We then radically improved the ring peg design and had the moulds of our forged RT pistons modified. Even with very large quantities of the piston ordered our piston manufacturer had let us down and not even had the moulds ready, when we wanted to have the pistons delivered. This was the end for us with these people. After this, we took the plane straight away and flew over to meet Meteor. The communication and flexibility of them was second to none and on our first visit we were for sure that this is the way to go.

The Meteor pistons are under production at the moment and all future RT cylinder kits will come with the new, Italian made pistons. Meteor is producing the Mugello, Monza and Imola pistons as well and these are excellent quality. We stay with our Japanese rings that were recommended as one the best brands by Meteor too. The pistons will be MoS2 coated to give some extra safety during the running in period.

For all RT owners who are in doubt about the forged pistons, we will offer a special deal for upgrading to the new, Italian made Meteor pistons. Details will be given once the pistons are ready.

[bjhart]

Just to keep the thread up to date, SC have now had a chance to inspect the returned kit and have summarised;
1. The rings pegs are still in place although a small area around the peg hole has detached...reason unknown
2. There is damage to the piston and bore again reason not defined, although they are confident the bore damage is minimal and will not adversely affect performance.
3. There are signs of extreme heat damage to piston sides and gudgeon pin location , which is almost certainly due to the cylinder base leak.

They have therefore kindly agreed to supply a new piston....result, thank you Philipp.

Thanks to everyone's input on this thread.

So the next job is to get the cylinder stud sockets welded and the face etc 're-machined and then rebuild....then as Philipp said... And you keep on the good work to thrash the RT kit with the trailer around!?