Hey everyone, I just joined this forum, but I've been riding my '93 EX500 for a few years now. I have a couple questions I was hoping to get some help with.
I had a problem last fall. I was taking off from a stop sign and at about 10mph, the bike came to a lurching halt and started making a lot of clacking noises. I took it home to check out and can't really find anything easily. I hand-cranked the engine and it moves smooth, so I don't think it's the valves or pistons or chambers at all. I disassembled the clutch pack and everything is in great condition and in-spec. I reassembled and adjusted the clutch, but there was a lot of drag while pushing the bike in-gear with the clutch in. So I think it's probably a synchro gear or something in the transmission
So now I bought an engine to swap. The manual I have says to take off the cylinder head, pistons, cylinders, etc. .... then remove a portion of the frame on the right-front side to get the crankcaseout of the frame. I want to get the engines out and in without disassembling everything.
Does anyone know if this is possible.
Thanks for the help and advice.

 

AAAAGGHHH! Can you cancel your Ebay bid without getting a bad rating?
ALL bikes, even the healthy ones will be sluggish when you push them forward IN GEAR with the clutch in, so that is NOT a symptom of anything wrong. Does the engine clack while idling in neutral?
Or does it clack when in gear with the clutch in?
The clack could be something as simple as a mal-adjusted camchain tensioner, or a header bolt that came loose. There are no gear synchronizers in the EX500 that I'm aware of. It's not a car.
I implore you to cancel that ebay bid if you can bow-out gracefully.
This might be something very simple and easily fixed.
Let us know how it goes.
Peace!
-Chris in Carlsbad, CA

 

If you don't know how to diagnose it, post everything you can here and experts such as Chris can help you out. If that fails, swallow your pride and try having a shop diagnose it for you. Tell them that you only want to diagnose it. 1 or 2 hours of shop time should be cheaper then buying and mostly shippinga replacement motor and parts are so abdunant for these bikes (which is why i chose one as a project) that they are cheap, cheap, cheap!

Good luck bud!