If anyone remembers, this summer/fall I had problems with my oil pressure light coming on while the bike was hot, at idle, and on the sidestand.  I found some gasket maker pieces in the oil, and assumed that was the problem.  I finally took the oil pan off to see what was in there and in the oil strainer and found this:


The large piece is about 1.5 inches long.  The outer edge of the larger piece of the foreign material has about the same curve as the oil strainer.  It is hard, probably a plastic.  The thickness tapers towards the inside edge, as seen in the second pic.  It has an arc to it when you lay it on its side, so it may have been conical in shape, or it may just be warped by heat.

WHAT IS IT???  And how did it get in my oil pan?

edit - pictures shrunken

I cant tell you where it came from, but that looks like a piece of gasket to me. Of course, its a bit thick to be gasket.. but I cant imagine what else it would be... unless your engine has turned into a Caramel Toffe factory.

EDIT: could it be part of a clutch plate? Its certainly round enough.... even though clutch plates dont (normally) taper.

OK You got goats ... thats lacquer from the rotor magnet ...
Cool.
Srinath.

Where is the oil strainer when you have the pan off?  Im probley going to have to take my oil pan off and fix my striped drain plug and I think I might clean it while Ive got it apart, just want to make sure I get the right part.

Srinath, you truely are a GS guru.  I took the left cover off and looked at the alternator magnets, where 75% of the laquer was knocked off.  And the laquer for the last complete strip was buckling.  All the magnets are in place and in tact.

I am not familiar with goats syndrome yet, I never followed those threads that closely.  So my question is, Does that laquer need to be there?  Or can i just get all the pieces out and put my bike back together?

In the mean time, I think I'll do some research on Goats

Quote from: sprint_9Where is the oil strainer when you have the pan off?  Im probley going to have to take my oil pan off and fix my striped drain plug and I think I might clean it while Ive got it apart, just want to make sure I get the right part.

Now that I have the oil pan off, my oil strainer is in the basement, in the parts washer.  

Oh wait, you probably want to know where the oil strainer is on your bike...
You should see the strainer right away when you take the oil pan off.  It has three 10mm (i think) bolts holding it on and has an arrow engraved on it that points forward.  Both things very easy to take off with the exaust off (also very easy to take off)

I'd say the lacquer should be there ... now you may be able to spray on or coat it with lacquer from a can ... never tried it ... my rotor was an enchilada by the time I got around to looking at it ...
Cool.
Srinath.

What is the purpose of the the laquer, insulator or glue?

The magnet is made of shaZam! ... OK OK compacted shaZam! ... or it looked like that on mine ... the glue keeps it from disintegrating at speed I would think ... but who knows ... I'd glue somehting ... maybe JB weld ... maybe lacquer ... marine tex ... BTW where is marine tex available ... need to patch up a tank ...
Cool.
Srinath.

Quote from: manofthefieldWhat is the purpose of the the laquer, insulator or glue?

the magnet on mine had a small small chip taken out of it.  I sealed it with this thin glue stuff.. like superglue... resists oils and such... and I haven't had a problem

In case anyone wants to know, this is what my alternator magnets look like:

I am going to take this pic and a piece of the "laquer" with me to talk to a mechanic tomorrow.  The guys at my local suzuki dealer are pretty good to deal with, so I will see what he says to do about it.

The materials small high field magnets are made from is very brittle "shaZam!" to use Srinath's term. You just about can break it in two by hand. The magnets are formed in a press mold while in a high magnetic field. Heat is usually applied in the process to assist in the fusing of the raw material. From this you get a very brittle magnet with a low impact or tensile limit. In short, the shaZam! breaks easy.

The encapsulation, epoxy or plastic, is usually there to protect the edges of the magnet from impact and chipping. We had super obtanium (just made that up) magnets that totally flew apart only from centrifugal force because the material could not take the shear stresses. This is bad on the rotating section of a CT scanner because they were used for postional information. They were replaced with the same type magnet that was totally encapsulated. We had to chisel the old ones off with gloves and eye shields because the obtanium (again made up name) was toxic and could be absorbed via skin.

I think the stuff on the GS rotor is there to keep from hitting the edges of the magnet while installing the cover. You are very close to getting Goat's Syndrome. If some of that had gotten between your magnets and the windings.... BAAAA! BAAAAA!  

The centrifugal forces on the rotor ADD to the compaction of the magnet. The Suzuki guy will probably recommend rotor replacement. Bend over, here it comes.  

It seams that  the rest of the magnents are still intact yet have no fractures. I am not sure all how worried I would be since the most likely thing to happen is for the magnets to fall off from the adhesive failing(thats what goat's is right?) so I am not to sure on what the coating actually does.

OK if the magnets fall off ... guess what the damage is going to be ... it will destroy your stator, and most likely the starter clutch as well as get shattered in a million pieces and get into the oil and get pumped into galleys and get stuck in the crank ... if you're very unlucky ... it might jam the starter clutch and spin the starter to 80,000 rpm ... and destroy it as well ... AKA starwalts disease ... if you're unlucky .... so now do you feel lucky ... do you .. Punk ...
Forgive me ... I been watching Aaaahnold in True lies and I want to talk like Dirty Harry ... so do you ... PUNK
OK Im good ...
Cool.
Srinath.

eh goat's isn't ALL bad... I recovered... after my second bout.... lol...

Quotenow you may be able to spray on or coat it with lacquer from a can

No, plz dont do that, Find a place that rebuilds Pump Drive motors, or heavy duty electric motors, if they do the rebuilding in house, they can dip your rotor in fresh epoxy. they have the solvents and everything needed to clean off all the oldstuff and to make sure there is a good bonding of the newstuff.   worse case buy another rotor in better shape.

Well, I talked to the guys at the dealer today, they said that the epoxy between the magnets and the rotor is what holds the magnets on.  It seemed to be their opinion that the epoxy on the end that was chipping off didn't do much.  All the rest of the epoxy on my rotor between the magnets and underneath seems to be in tact.  It was their opinion to clean off the loose fragments and put it back together.

I'm not 100% convinced, because I really don't want to come down with full on goats syndrome.  I think I'm going to take the rotor to an electric motor shop and see what they think/ possibly have it recoated as blueknyt suggested.

p.s. any suggestions for getting ther rotor bolt out?  I can't seem to figure out how to stop the engine from spinning

Put it in gear?

I had the same problem removing mine. Look under my Just picked up my GS500 project thread. I ended up using the "Broussard Method" of putting a wheel stop bar across the swing arm, putting the engine in gear, turning the rotor bolt until the wheel spoke hit the bar and stopped. Crank on the bolt till it lets go. Normal thread direction for removal.

Now the real fun begins. You will have to use some type of bump tool to remove the rotor. It is pressed on via the bolt. It is easier to check out my method or something similar. Better hope you don't have to go Srinath's way though.

Page 2 of the "Just picked up..." thread shows the tool I made.

The epoxy on mine is loose also. I still think it protects the magnet edges.

Check with a snowmobile shop, preferably and Arctic Cat one.  I had the stator on my snowmobile take a crap and my local shop was able to send it in an get it fixed, if you cant find the info from one of your local shops Ill hit up mine and see if I can come up with anything.  

Also a more cost effective solution would be to keep a look out on eBay, I saw a stator on there last week for not a whole lot, there are a couple of guys on there now that have some electrical parts up for sale, send them an email.