Problems with aluminum belt casing(crack)

I ran into problems today. I took my 02 Swing in Thursday for the works. It has 20,000+ miles on it, so I figured I'd have the brakes flushed, coolant flushed, valves inspected, final drive lube changed...etc. I get a call to pick it up today and head over. As I'm paying the $250 bill I'm running down the list of things that got done to double check with them, and it turns out they had forgotten to do the final drive oil. They said they'd quick do it, since I already paid, I'm assuming it was going to be free since it was them that forgot to do it, whatever either way. Anyways, after 10 minutes of waiting in the showroom the mechanic calls me and the owner back to look at a crack in the aluminum casing that they noticed once they took all the black plastic covers off. I didn't have a camera to snap a pic, but I'll attach one of JeffR's pictorial pictures to help explain. (**Pic is not actually my cover, just for reference.**) Ignore all the red highlights, I highlighted where my crack is in green. It is right around where that bearing is pressed into the cover. The crack actually goes about 60-75% around as I've roughly highlighted. I am not sure what caused this, but we did do a J.Costa and new belt install last summer, and have probably put on about 2,000 miles since then. I did not notice that crack then, but to be fair, I didn't really inspect that cover either. I'd have thought a crack would have jumped out at me though, but maybe not. My question is, what could have caused this? Did we put the cover on wrong somehow? I thought the install was pretty straight forward, but was there something I was supposed to line up and didn't? Could it have possibly been just a fluke or faulty casting? I left the scoot there because I am afraid to chance driving it, he ordered a new cover from Honda($250ish) but it is coming from a warehouse in Cali and will take an estimated 3 days from Monday, so I'm without my scooter for a week Better safe than sorry though. My concern it that after dumping the $$$ on the new part, whatever caused the first one to crack will also cause the second one to go bad. I'll get some actual pics when I pick it up to show the actual damage. They asked if it had ever been down on that side. I bought it from a dealer 5 years ago with 7,000 miles on it already, but to my knowledge and from the looks of it I didn't think it had been. This is actally the first issue I've ever had with the bike.

Sorry all, I was wrong.

Let's start this again, WOW, that's looks pretty darn bizzar to me. Good Luck.

My question is, why the heck did they take all the covers off to change the final drive oil? It can be easily changed without taking off anything except the filler bolt, and the draining bolt.

Is the cracked piece coming out (away from the bearing) or in toward the bearing?
could someone have tapped the center too hard and broken it?

is the bearing and pulley assembly loose enough to move in and out enough to do that?

Without seeing the cover It is hard to guess which one happened. That casting is pretty thin in that area. I bet someone smacked it with a BIG hammer to either get it of or put it on.
MaxB

In answer to why they took off the plastic covers to change the oil, because that is what the manual says to do. And as for the crack going in or out, I believe it was going in if I remember correctly.

Picked up scooter today. Here are some pics of the damaged case.




As you can see in the last pic showing the inside view, the crack goes right around the base of that big elevated tube. I still have no Idea what caused this and hope it might save someone else should they now notice this area on theirs.

Very Happy to hear your back on the road. Things are much better when the Scooters running well.

som2002 wrote:

As you can see in the last pic showing the inside view, the crack goes right around the base of that big elevated tube. I still have no Idea what caused this and hope it might save someone else should they now notice this area on theirs.

Did they install a new bearing with the cover??

yes