Middle Box Caught Fire! How To Clean Out?

[ianj]

Hi all,

Pals '04 Sherco middle box caught fire......enough heat that the seat started to melt, as did the middle box cover....in fact it dissappeared in a pile of melted plastic.

Anyways, apart from soaking in petrol for a week (not very effective me thinks), is there anything that we can use to properly remove all the old tar/gunk/grundge from the middle box.

At

Edited December 29, 2007 by IanJ

[zippy]

Remove from bike and light on fire again.

Granted any paint on the middle box will probably burn off or discolor.

Fire --- nature's cleanser

[shercoholic]

Judging by your avatar Ian I would stay away from the fire and petrol, especially as we are talking an aluminium silencer.

Very difficult to get a controlled burn without melting the whole kit and caboodle.

Plenty of topics on this forum (search on silencer) about cutting open, and repacking but you will need a skilled welder to seal back up.

http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/index....4&hl=repack

http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/index....xhaust&st=0

http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/upload...-1106700014.jpg

http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/index....&hl=exhaust

[sutty]

not sure if this will work but my mate said that he has put costic soda in his exhaust and it works not sure how long you leave it in though maybe worth a try

[peterb]

I am fairly sure the middle boxes have a central perforated tube with the packing made from a steel wool look alike, well they are on a GG and it may be the same on the Sherco. This being the case, any burning would most likely destroy the packing. Probably best to cut it open and re-pack with whatever material there should be and have someone TIG weld it for you. Make sure you mention that it was soaked in petrol first though!

Bye, PeterB.

[gjbiker]

Caustic soda is great for de-coking header pipes but using it in a silencer box may cause the packing material to break down. Cutting a hole and repacking is the way forward. You can make a 'butt' type flange from sheet steel / alloy around the cut out and pop rivet back on with some gun gum if you don't know any TIG welding mates.

GJ

[howard wallace]

Sounds like there is an air leak, in the header pipe to barrel copper gasket, or the o-rings in the front of muffler. Need a good air supply to get muffler that hot. Seen it happen on a brand new bike when homologation header was changed, and the competition one was poorly installed. Melted plastic guard first ride. Had nothing to do with oil build up.

Cheers,

ShercoH

[copemech]

Ian,

Not quite sure what you are up to here!

Did the mudguard have the proper insulation installed?

Was this caused by a long hard run at open throttle?

Was it just too clogged in the first place by residues from race gas and non synthetic oils?

What exactly is the middle box cover? that melted?

And lastly but not least, maybe you have done burnt it out and it is OK?

Howard makes a good point there as well! Flamethrower style!

[ham2]

I think the silencer is packed with stainless wire-wool so you can get some good results by burning it out.

Personally this method didn't work for me but swilling with petrol for a week or so did??

The more worrying thing is that the silencer reached such a high temperature while the bike was operating !!

I'm told if your timing is retarded too much then the exhaust runs very hot,distorting the rear mud-guard (if you've removed the baco-foil).

Some people can even tell where your timing is at by looking at the dis-colouration of the front pipe.