Without a doubt, the number one cause of engine failure is DIRT. When dirt enters your cylinder, it's mixed with two stroke oil and becomes a very destructive kind of lapping compound. Kind of like liquid sand paper. Dirt can take its toll on an engine quick. How quick? I built a big bore engine for a good friend of mine. His son raced the bike in the 80cc modified class. He installed a new 28mm PWK carburetor and never blocked off the spigot for the oil injection. Dirt found its way into the engine via the open hole. The engine was blown in less than 20 minutes. Dirt can find its way into your engine many ways. Some of the most common ones are :
Of all these sources, the dirty air cleaner is the most common. Lets face it , we all hate to clean our air filters. Cleaning your filter after every ride is a must in a good maintenance program. Here are a few tips that may help.
Get a clean five gallon bucket and fill it with kerosene. Dunk your filter in and squeeze out the mung. Do this several times. Next ,rinse the filter out in hot soapy water. Your kitchen sink works best for this as long as your mom or wife isn't looking. Also get her blow dryer and run out to the garage before she gets wise to you. Use the dryer to evaporate the water in the filter. When the water is out, re-oil the filter and squeeze out the excess oil. Grease the sealing lip of the filter with a thin coat of waterproof grease. Bel-Ray works great. Clean the air box and re-install. I like to have three or four filters ready to go all the time. I store them in Zip-lock bags and keep them with my spare parts. As far as oil goes, DON'T ever use anything other than filter oil. I use Bel-Ray foam filter oil. I also like the Twin-Air brand filters. They are smaller than stock and allow more air to flow in the box. Filter oil is messy . Try some rubber gloves. It makes the job a little neater.
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