Tenere Oil Pump Gear Failure (The Real Reason)

[Geoff ForshawMember]

As some of you may be aware after reading the Trailzone Victorian High Country Adv Ride thread. Nickj’s Oil pump failed on his Tenere.
After further investigation and talking to Nick himself, the previous owner of his Ten had an accident and dropped the bike on the RHS and broke the water pump and clutch cover housing. This then resulted in debris entering the crankcase which had not been cleaned out properly and it has only rared its head now after many hrs and kms of adv riding.
When the accident occured it is now evident that there was still parts of the old water gear inside the oil pump pick up. :ohmy: As I have already stated after many hrs and kms of riding these small plastic parts have moved through the oil pick up entering the scavenge side of the oil pump causing it to seize resulting in immediate failure of the weakest link being the plastic oil pump gear.
After cleaning the oil gallery out and a check of the top end bearings on the camshaft it seems as though the engine is undamaged at this stage. The final check will be on re-assembly and start up.
This failure was due to some one elses negligence and “not” a design fault. After seeing TB’s Ten do around 35000km without fault I would recommend them to any one.
However one suggestion in my opinion would be to install an oil pressure light to ensure your machine is well protected.

I hope this clears things up.

Cheers,
Lefty

TELL TALE SIGNS
Dry Oil Filter

Water Pump Gear

WaterPump Removed with broken Gear inside

Clutch Cover Removed

Extracting debris from oil pump pick up

[Mick DMember]

Nice one Lefty. I wondered to myself the other day whether the previous damage to the water pump had anything to do with it. you confirmed that! well done.

[DeanMember]

Good one lefty, I reckon the oil pump light or gauge would be a neccessity. Also makes you wonder when someone repairs a job that they dont fully investigate and remove all of the damaged bits! thats just negligence !

Ollie

[Ian KersleyMember]

Great work Lefty there had to be more to it .

bones

[Mark BuntingMember]

Top Job Left one.

Nick was very lucky the clutch noise got his attention and you were able to help him out

Kram

[Kent DuncanMember]

Didn’t realise they had plastic gears like the DR’s..

Good to know.

Has anyone else discovered a Tenere engine/ trans issue like this?

Wonder if a larger oil cooler would help?

[Scott SouthwellMember]

Zoro wrote:

Didn’t realise they had plastic gears like the DR’s..

Good to know.

Has anyone else discovered a Tenere engine/ trans issue like this?

Wonder if a larger oil cooler would help?

Zoro I’m not sure if you fully read Leftys post.

The cause of the failure was the bike had previous accident damage on the motor and some debris from that damage was still floating around inside the motor finally making its way to the oil pump causing it to seize.

An oil cooler may be good but won’t help in cases like this.

[Kent DuncanMember]

Ahhh i see, no i had not read the post fully, still surprised they use nylon gears inside the box, would have thought Delrin would have been a better material.
Obviously they use it to subdue some of the noise made by the gears, why not have steel helical cut gears instead?

[BrettMember]

Because then you would need to fit thrust plates or factor in thrust loads caused by the helical gears, maybe bigger components etc then that adds weight to an already fat bike. :blink: no one likes fat bikes

[Dwayne OMember]

Chicken wrote:

Because then you would need to fit thrust plates or factor in thrust loads caused by the helical gears, maybe bigger components etc then that adds weight to an already fat bike. :blink: no one likes fat bikes

:whistle: You fishin` Chicken ????
You will get an easy bite with that bait :laugh:

I suppose NickJ can only be happy really with the outcome (would have been shit to ride it and come to grief in the Alps)
And the other positive,,, He has a clean bike to take back home up the highway

[BrettMember]

👿 Actually didn’t think of THAT angle 👿

[adamMember]

I wondered what could have done that when I read that article.
Bloody good read too I wish I’d known you guys were stirring up the dust round here. It sounded like my kind of fun. Stirring up the journo’s is more than fun in itself too.

[Author]

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