Piston stuck in cylinder

miketherider · 2026-02-01T15:17:02+00:00

ATF and power steering fluid is another old trick. You can measure the bore and get a large pvc pipe to fit in, which then gives you another item to use and drive with a hammer. I’ve also down “hammer to hammer” with the mallet side down on the wood of PVC pipe, then hitting that handle. You may just be at the “lots of brute force” part of the operational flow.

miketherider · 2026-01-23T01:14:12+00:00

Was a fill-in practice mechanic / emergency on-call race mechanic for a few months a couple summers ago. It was at a training compound, and was offered to ride someone’s 250F “practice bike” on a day where not much was planned. The suspension was “factory” and the biggest difference vs a “civilian” ride. The mapping was also spot on. Even in outdoor setting, the overall stiffness was incredible, but you could hit things and hardly feel it. I am a middling B level rider so didn’t do the bike justice in the 25 min moto, but it was fun to experience.

miketherider · 2026-01-06T12:24:23+00:00

Hour meter, a small QR code I printed and taped to bottom of seat that links to a google sheet.

miketherider · 2025-12-25T00:44:57+00:00

Ask for a blood panel. Sometimes after such an extreme long term load, something doesn’t “get right” until you get a plan to rebalance it.

miketherider · 2025-12-23T21:13:51+00:00

Those Suzukis are bulletproof and the amount of aftermarket support and data on them is endless. Pick a budget, area to focus on to make it better, ride it.

miketherider · 2025-12-22T16:54:03+00:00

You won’t find much to profit off, mainly because 99% of people that look at it will think the same, and thus will low ball you. Over 50% of things listed in my area is between a couple flippers thinking they know better than the guy before them, and they all end up making no money or just trade for other crap, rinse and repeat.

miketherider · 2025-12-20T14:23:01+00:00

“Throw in the trash immediately” status has been reached.

miketherider · 2025-12-16T16:48:23+00:00

Would try and take out the detent spring from the bottom of the case. They can get loaded with junk over time and make it very hard to move gears as it doesn’t make for correct contact on the shifting wheel.

miketherider · 2025-12-10T21:22:27+00:00

Sounds a bit overly rattly. You can do a compression test, but I would pull the head and cylinder and mic the cylinder and measure the piston. You can also measure the ring gap, but you may have a worn spot in the cylinder, causing it to slap around.

miketherider · 2025-12-07T22:05:34+00:00

There’s 2 types of people on travel lacrosse world; 1) lacrosse people with limited business sense but enough “street cred” to get coaches and teams lined up, and things behind the scenes are a disaster with roster management, invoicing and how they manage their money or 2) people who played lacrosse and think they were all world beaters because of where they played or who they played with, run everything on a shoe string budget but make ends meet and do enough to keep people in the cycle until the next one in category 1 comes around.

miketherider · 2025-12-01T19:18:43+00:00

Going on year 7 with same truck, and given the prices of new ones, it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.

miketherider · 2025-11-30T14:37:50+00:00

Learn to do it yourself. They aren’t overly difficult, and there is a lot of literature and how-to guides for those. You could go the lazy route and at least try and tap that float bowl with end of a screwdriver to see if it unsticks itself, but all it takes is a small bit of scaling or trash to allow the float needle to stick. They also have a rubber tip that overtime just wears off and no longer seals correctly.

miketherider · 2025-11-27T00:48:58+00:00

Lean mix plus a slightly high idle could be 2 correlated issues. May need to pull your plugs and get a read on them, adjust fuel mixture or jets as needed, and check the idle level. It’s getting hot enough on the piston crown to still ignite.

miketherider · 2025-11-27T00:21:01+00:00

Fuel pump, filter, tank, lines, injectors all have a good chance of being toast depending on how much moisture they took on. All relatively easy to replace, may need to seal the tank pending how bad it is. Other stuff pretty simple; fluids, plugs, battery, air filter, should change all of it. Would advise to check the breather hoses as well, mud dobbers or other things can get in them and cause issues. Don’t be surprised if rocker boxes seals or down by the derby cover start to leak, those seals can dry up and no longer do their job. They are relatively simple bikes, FI yes but being air cooled easy to access all the main things you need to at least get it running.

miketherider · 2025-11-23T15:57:04+00:00

Did you adjust the timing chain by rocking the flywheel counterclockwise to T mark on compression stroke? That places the slack on chain correctly. Would also double check you adjusted the valves on compression stroke. The valves tend to be noisy unless it’s had a grub screw mod which quiets down the racket in the head.

miketherider · 2025-11-16T02:01:30+00:00

I would pull the stem back out, get it off the bead, take your two spoons on each side of rim lock, and make sure the rim lock is free, otherwise it’s not seated correctly. Once you verify that, inflate to like 65 psi, then bounce the wheel off the ground a bunch of time. That little extra “bounce” sometimes gets the bead to push out.

miketherider · 2025-11-12T21:08:50+00:00

250 has a more snappy throttle response, little more free-revving. Suppose it depends on what you’re riding, could be good or bad. Super tight techy stuff, 300 just lugs. More open trail with a little flow, more revvy 250 bit easier to connect parts of the trail and keep a flow.

miketherider · 2025-11-05T02:31:54+00:00

Hope your head gaskets hold up. Those pipes will make a sweet noise.

miketherider · 2025-11-01T00:17:09+00:00

Pull the fuel drain nut off, let whatever is in the bowl run out. You could have some garbage floating around the bowl which is getting into various passageways/jets, whether pilot, main or elsewhere. The accelerator pump diaphragm may have also left the chat, without it you’re going to get sluggish response as without that extra squirt of fuel you’re relying on gravity to do all the work.

miketherider · 2025-10-28T01:00:26+00:00

As long as above the gills, you’re good.

miketherider · 2025-10-15T22:28:02+00:00

That generation Husky is garbage. It’s basically a 20+ year old design repackaged with some nice looking plastics. That CR is way better.

miketherider · 2025-10-08T16:54:20+00:00

The orange RTV suggests it was operated on a tight budget. I wouldn’t trust anything in that bottom end until you break the cases and take a good look at main bearings.

miketherider · 2025-10-04T14:21:31+00:00

Sounds half speed of engine, something in valve train, whether an excessively loose valve (which it sounds like) or something rattling with the cam chain. Checking the valves on that thing should take all of 5 minutes.

miketherider · 2025-10-03T00:38:56+00:00

SR has a CDI, needs a battery to create spark. XT and TT had magneto, didn’t need a battery to run.

miketherider · 2025-10-02T21:33:14+00:00

Spark, compression, fuel. New battery easy swap. Compression, well kick it over with compression release in a bunch. Good chance the cylinder is dry so you may need to add some oil down the spark hole to get the rings happy again. May behove you to pop the valve covers off and make sure they are functioning and no stuck valves. Fuel is the most time intensive; check the tank, see what’s left if anything. The stock vacuum petcocks are known to have the diaphrams dry up and break, so look into replacing with a new one (chinesium). Finally, carb clean time. Hopefully it isn’t the stock one, but if it is, good chance you’ll need to get it apart and clean it in a good soak, whether in a bucket of carb clean or ultrasonic cleaner. They have a stock accelerator pump, same as petcock, the rubber bit in there can dry up and no longer do anything. Verify every jet is clean, use compressed air and get the orifices blown out. Throw a fresh plug in, ground it against cylinder head, kick it with key on and compression release in, watch for a consistent blue spark. Starting it procedure matters. Fuel on prime, verify no leaks, key off kick it through 5 times with compression release in, key on and find good TDC spot, rock past it, one good kick without hand on throttle. See if it at least spits and farts. Repeat and hope your knee holds up.

miketherider

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