This came out of my oil when I drained it

[JTGS850GL]

But those bearings don't have riveted bearing casings.

[Nessism]

Which bearing do you think it is? Looked through all the fiches and can't find one that would have those two rivet openings and can't remember ever seeing one. Just curious for future reference.

The cage is part of the bearing. It's not a separate part. Can you see the photo I posted earlier? Pretty much every ball bearing assembly has these cages to help space the bearings evenly around the ID. These cages come in all shapes and sizes some of which are shown below.

[Cipher]

14 in the fiche does

[Nessism]

14 in the fiche does

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Suzuki-GS400-GS550-GS750-GS850-GS1000-GS1100-Bearing-Crankshaft-NOS-09262-30033-/121009832102?hash=item1c2cbf80a6:m:m5G52V0faq5T-AJWv72RI1g&vxp=mtr

Could be from a transmission bearing too.

[Cipher]

OP may have dodged a bullet here. Regularly dropping the oil pan is a good thing to do.

[JTGS850GL]

Now I see what you're talking about. Without a size reference I was thinking it was bigger. More like a bearing race then the cage. Ya, that could be any number of gears. Any one of them would mean a critical problem.

[tkent02]

I ask these questions as it's possible a PO had a problem, fixed the problem and inadvertently left some shrapnel in the motor. It happened to me. One of my motors whilst it was in the POs hands, had a clutch explosion. Whole engine was rebuilt but he missed the stuff in the sump.

This, I have found pieces in engines that were repaired. Can't imagine a bearing missing that to not make some noise as it runs. How many of that size and style bearings are in your engine? If you are going to take it apart, flip the engine over, remove the lower case half, you should be able to see every ball bearing in the whole thing without opening up the top end. Unless it needs to be rebuilt anyway, which isn't all that likely on an 850G.

[thewozza]

Can you hear any rumblings?

No rumblings, this was just a routine maintenance.

How long have you had this engine?

I've had it for about 5000 km, it has about 55k (kms) on it right now. But it could be 155k for all I know.

When was the last time you took the sump off and looked in the sump strainer?

I haven't done this, but I'll drop it tonight and take a look.

I ask these questions as it's possible a PO had a problem, fixed the problem and inadvertently left some shrapnel in the motor. It happened to me. One of my motors whilst it was in the POs hands, had a clutch explosion. Whole engine was rebuilt but he missed the stuff in the sump.

You might have a good motor with one bit of metal floating about. You just might.

I don't know the whole history of this motor. My story could be the same as yours, it is tempting to think so because there's no metal particulate in the oil or in the filter. But there's no way to know for sure and if it really is a bearing disintegrating...then I'm going to ruin something really bad in there if I continue to drive it.

[thewozza]

If you are going to take it apart, flip the engine over, remove the lower case half, you should be able to see every ball bearing in the whole thing without opening up the top end.

I'll do this. I'm putting another engine in there anyway, so I'll have all the time in the world to get to the bottom of this.

[tkent02]

I guess having a spare engine makes it a lot easier. What condition is the engine with the extra bearing parts in?

[thewozza]

What condition is the engine with the extra bearing parts in?

It is dirty, but fundamentally it seemed to work. It didn't sound weird, and I ran it pretty much every other day on my commute into town which is about ~30km each way.

The only thing that was odd was it did some tapping on low-rev load, but I'm on higher octane fuel to see if that helps but I'm not convinced yet.

I wish there was an easy way I could say that this was just an errant piece of metal in the oil that the magnet caught. I haven't actually pulled the engine yet, just detached all the other parts and loosened the mounts. Getting the engine out on the right side is going to be challenging with the sidecar there.

[thewozza]

So I have another engine, an 1980 GS850 that I think I can get in here, I just have to move my clutch parts over and drill out some stuck exhaust bolts. I had a 1979, but it isn't really compatible enough.

But there is news. I dropped the oil pan on my problem bike and this is what I found in there.IMG_20160704_143433.jpg

WTF is all that stuff? What business do those springs have being in my engine? The small black piece is plastic, who knows what from...

[Cipher]

Springs look like they are from a bearing seal which makes sense.

[chef1366]

If it is the motor should knock like hell
hmm springs
I know of drum return and neutral piston but neither look like that
Sabotage?

[Cipher]

They are probably seal lip springs.