Just read through a lot of this, should be great when your fairings are finished!

Just out of interest, where abouts in Cornwall are you?

I'm living in Newlyn now, work at RAF St Mawgan, so I'll be using the bike to coommute a bit in the tourist/silly season!

Cheers for the comments too!

Where abouts are you in Cornwall?

Ah right, cool. I live in Illogan, near Redruth.

If you go to the "bike meet" (I hate calling it that) on a Tuesday night in Hayle, may see you there, I go there occassionally.

Cool, yeah I'll probably go to the 'meet' occasionally once the weather warms up a bit!

If you ever need a hand nc wise or any bits give me a shout as I have loads of bits spare!

Today has been a bad day

I took the bike out, started it up, it got up to running temp ok.

Then 3 miles down the road, suddenly lost power and started rattling like a rattley thing on a rattley day.
Like maybe there was a stone actually inside the engine, bouncing off the pistons.

Checked the oil, it was low, but still registered on the dipstick but also had some small metal shavings in it.

It's now sat in the garage, and I'm thinking the worst - new engine?

Any ideas or offers of a free engine?!

That's bad news Kev. But give it a thorough check over tomorrow, drop the oil and see how bad things are.

Hopefully it's not terminal matey.

Crap that sucks
Keep a look out on here, one will turn up, cheap maybe but not so free

Well, after a quick chat with several different people, it sounds as of it could be the small end gone on one of the pistons

My Dad recons it's a top end rattle. I've still not had a chance to drop the oil and check anything yet. Standby for updates :-/

That sucks corn hole man, hope things aren't as bad as they seem.

Right - Dropped the oil out of the engine today - it was real black and thick - and had a 'metallic glint' to it - then if i swirled the oil around in the tray i caught it in, there were a few small shards of metal.

Now I'm not sure where these bits came from, I took the clutch casing off for a peek inside, and it didn't seem too bad, no large amounts of swarf or debris inside like I was expecting.

But having never rebuilt an engine or suffered this before, I don't know what to expect; or what I'm looking for

I've started taking the rest of the bike apart to enable me to drop the engine and get a good look at it on the work bench.

I've also been on the lookout on ebay for a replacement engine - just missed out on one today for £137 who out bid me?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The alternative is to rebuild this one, but a gasket set alone is £100

Anyway - I'll keep you all posted with updates.