Broke down in the middle of nowhere, NEVER RUN YOUR ENGINE TOO HOT.

[crows22]

I can not stress this enough, you've got to give your 2-stroke a break every once in a while. Especially when you f*ed up like me, running it to the point of being able to turn it off, stop, and watch light white smoke rise off the engine.

I actually ran it so hot climbing the cascade range mountains, 2,000+ feet of elevation on a country logging road without any cell service, and no civillization for miles. My spark plugs threads melted out, bent, and it shot my spark plug straight out of the bike. Now I was at least 30 miles in either direction with extreme hills from even a farm house, and I hadn't seen another car for over an hour on this dead no-lane-marking worn down country road without water, no cell service, and I had an hour of daylight left. Dense forests and a river was all I had, no power lines, not even a plane in the sky. I could hear my words echoing off the mountains around me, very peaceful, and eeirly scary. Ended up hitching a ride with some really nice fishers just before it got dark. Moral of the story, when your running for long periods of time, occasionally stop, check to see if your running hot, and if so give it a break, just 5, 10 minutes will do. It might save you from a near-death experience like mine, that night was gonna be 30 F and all I had was a hoodie.

Also, this occurred on the Nestucca River Road in Oregon if anyone is wondering, about 1-2 months ago.

Post any crazy stories you have below.

 

[Sidewinder Jerry]

Four things will be helpful to you. Get a tachometer, get a cylinder head heat sensor, carry repair accessories and last of all always carry tools.

 

[Chainlube]

You had to be running it way too lean to melt the spark plug threads. I've run my bike in 100 degree heat all day without an issue.

 

[crows22]

You had to be running it way too lean to melt the spark plug threads. I've run my bike in 100 degree heat all day with an issue.

No way you've run it all day without the engine physically overheating and losing performance like I did, without the spark plug issue, and this was in 60's F weather. If you ran it all day or practically all day you would have quickly destroyed the engine, especially in 100 f. Maybe idling/flat or mild roads would be ok, but with small breaks.

All day as in how many hours straight? For me it was about 3 hours straight, and on a 2,000 feet+ vertical climb into the highest Mountains in my state.

 

[Chainlube]

Well, your right about that, run out of gas in a hour and a half. On the Greystokes tour I ride at 1000m or whatever that is in feet, and the temp drops to 80.

 

[digital_life]

The only time I stop is to have a smoke and thats about every hour or two

 

[Member 30571]

I rode my bike for 6 to 8 hours a day in 80F+ heat and never had a problem with over heating.

 

[GreasyChris]

Properly tuned you won't have any problems and it will never over heat. Facts.

 

[wan37]

crows22 what kind a set up did you have? just curious .

 

[Will'smotobikes19]

Four things will be helpful to you.

Are those four things 4 strokes? they do have a built in cooling fan unlike the 2 strokes lol just jokin.