testing for noise

[nascar7613]

Working on an 03 Ultra. It is making a grinding noise in what seemed to be inside the primary, and the charging system is not working. I disassembled everything to get to the stator & rotor. The primary oil smelled like burnt electrical. I believe the stator is bad, the thing is I can't see anything that would have been making the grinding noise. The spline on the rotor is fine as well as the magnets. My question is can I safely run the engine with everything out of the primary to see if the noise is still there.

 

[HDDon]

I agree that the stator is shot and probably the VR. If you take everything out of the primary chain case how are you going to turn the motor over?

 

[nascar7613]

Scratch that question.

 

[TQuentin1]

My question is can I safely run the engine with everything out of the primary to see if the noise is still there.

No, but if you pull the spark plugs, you may be able to turn the engine over by hand with a hand crank socket ratchet to see if you can hear any noise (see pix).

But my guess is that some piece of metal was trapped on or between the magnets and made contact with the stator coils causing the grinding sound. Metal pieces from this then shorted some of the coils causing the burnt smell from the oil, and failure of the stator (and probably the VR).

Let us know.

TQ

 

[nascar7613]

I went ahead and put everything in the primary case back together, replaced the stator, and turned the engine over by hand. The noise was now clearly heard inside the cam cover. Both of the chain tensioners were all broken up. Replaced the tensioners, the noise is gone and the charging sysyem works fine.

 

[HDDon]

I went ahead and put everything in the primary case back together, replaced the stator, and turned the engine over by hand. The noise was now clearly heard inside the cam cover. Both of the chain tensioners were all broken up. Replaced the tensioners, the noise is gone and the charging sysyem works fine.

When you say all broken up I hope you were able to collect all the pieces. The small pieces can and will get into the oil passages and you will have a more serious problem than noise.