I managed to get the C15F sludge trap out today. It is packed with crud.
My question is - is it safe and logical to clean this detritus out with the crankshaft assembled? It seems to me that there is danger of me loosening rubbish that could drop into the oilway to the big end. On the other hand, given that the big end has no play (and may be new), is separating the flywheels solely to guard against this likely to do more harm than good?
Hi,
Do you have a vacuum cleaner in your shed? Try sucking the material out and if needed use a bit of WD40 to loosen it if necessary but keep the suction going. If your cleaner is powerful enough you may be able to draw WD40 through the crank/big end and out of the sludge trap bringing any muck with it.
Dave.
Surely do job right now and strip crank clean out and then inspection crank pin etc ,that's my opinion anyway regards Roy
I agree with Roy
Now is the time to do it properly
With modern oils and external filter it is unlikely that the job will need to be done ever again.
Poke it, clean it, dig it, blow through it with an airline, put it in the degreasing tank to soak, blow it again. Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied it's clean right through. It'll be fine, just as all the thousands of cranks before have been.
Based on the location of the sludge trap, it should be possible to clean out in situ provided that you can get at all the sludge. Otherwise, you have to split the crankcases and remove the crank. I, personally, don't think that's worth the effort provided you keep the hole pointing downwards as the detritus won't find its way upwards.
Does it really matter if some is already left in there? The centrifugal force, will keep it at the bottom. Bearing in mind the amount in there, it's likely that this has been amassed over many hundreds of miles -and years. These days, most of us don't do daily mileage on our BSA's so it's unlikely to fill up again in our lifetime.
I cleaned my B40 trap out with the trap pointing downwards and a supply of WD40 squirted along the crankshaft. Got it nicely clean. Fitted it. Laced up the cases and only then discovered it was a C15 crank not a B40 one!
Looking at your pictures, the dirt looks like dirt, rather than metal. I once took a Honda 50 apart and the centrifugal filter on that was about 4 inches diameter. It was packed with silver metal, which I thought was part of the device, until I poked it with a screwdriver. It had about two tablespoons full of deposits, after about 20,000 miles.