I was cornering at ~30km/h when the rear wheel skid out and I don't know how I managed to stay on it and avoid the rest of the rush hour traffic. When I got control over the bike I pulled over (a bit chocked) and could see that the rear wheel was covered in oil on the transmission side.
My first thought was that the bottom bolt for the transmission oil had fallen out. But I couldn't see where the oil came from except that it looked like coming from the housing over the belt (Not from the oil filter or from the bottom bolt for engine oil etc).
When I then tried to pull away the belt slipped a lot (enough for it too be unridable). I didn't know if the oil was from the transmission or from the engine, but it was obvious that there was oil on the belt. (I hoped it was just a seal ...)
I thought about getting it home (call for road assistance) but I doubted that I could do much about it myself so I could just as well get it down to shop right away. And since the breakdown was only 2 km from there I could just as well push it as wait for assistance.
There was no oil on the ground where it was parked while I was at work, so the leak had come very suddenly within a few km from I left work. My guess it that the had arisen as soon as I started the engine at closing time and it then just took some time for the oil to mess things up...
The next morning (23/2)I went down to the shop when the opened and talked with Peter (The mechanic) about it. He promised to look at it before lunch.
After lunch I went over there again. It was the seal on the crankshaft that had gotten loose. It is just pressed into to the engine casing from outside behind the vario. When it had gotten a bit loose it had then touched the vario which had helped it pop right out.
The seal was not damaged in any way except on the outer side where it had touched the rotating vario
It is a mystery why it suddenly decided to pop out, but Peter suggested that the differences in temperature has worked it loose. It has been well below freezing the last week so maybe some moisture had frozen to ice in there or just that the heat/freeze cycles has caused it too slip. I've discussed the possible cause with a few others and the most likely cause seems to be to high an oil pressure caused by either to much oil in the engine or blocked tubes from the engine. The oil was just replaced the day before and Peter know (and had checked) the right amount of oil. I had asked Peter to check the tubes again and he didn't find any problems. So why it suddenly popped out is still a mystery.
I had changed the vario myself a week ago so there was no need for Peter to look at the vario for the 30000km inspection. So the breakdown had probably nothing to do with him. It is just a coincidence that it happened the day after the inspection. When I replaced the original aprilia vario with the Bettella one I didn't see anything wrong with the shaft seal. But since I didn't suspect anything to be wrong I might not have looked that closely at it.
The tyre that was in backorder has also arrived. He just asked for the first one they could get in 140/70-12 and it happens to be a tyre that I've wanted to try for some time - A Heidenau K58. Now I'll see whether it is as good as many Germans think (I still have the Sava MC16 on the front).
The first seal that arrived from the importer was not the right one, so I waited until 6/3 before they could assemble it again. But the mechanic hadn't cleaned the oil completely off (So the belt started slipping after only 1km). I then went back to the shop, and asked determined (but still also polite) if they would allow me to do the rest of the cleaning myself in the workshop. With some hesitation they agreed to let me do it the day after. One of the mechanics would be working late so there would be space for me there after the others have left.
It took me just over an hour to strip the transmission, clean it (and the casing) with brake cleaner and put it back together again. So I really appreciate that they let me save that hour (money). I put the old belt back in (18,4mm down from 19mm new - Used for 14000km) and I'm thinking about the best way to clean my almost new belt (Only ~500km old Malossi belt).
Another thing was the cost of the shaft seal. I paid 311,25dkr (42€) for the seal. I found that a bit steep, so I've surfed a bit and found an online price of only 12,90dm (6,61$). So I've paid more than 6 times what i could have bought it for from Motorrad Geiwiz [D]. I could also have bought a complete set of shaft seals (4) for only 49,60DM (20€) from Zweirad Zähringer - Centromotori [D]. The rest of the invoice was okay with 1,5 hours and 0,5l oil and a bit for various grease etc. (The 1,5 hour included the replacement of the rear tyre for which the exhaust has to be dropped).
But with economy aside I'm not sure what to think about the service from the workshop this time.
- Its a bit suspicious that the scooter breaks down only 25km after a service, but that can of course be a coincidence.
- I had to wait for more than a week for the new seal (Probably mostly the fault of the importer)
- The scooter was not rideable when I came to pick it up (still oil on belt and clutch). They thought it was clean enough and that the belt would burn off the remaining oil
