Hello everyone. I'm hoping someone can help me. I recently picked up an 89 yamaha moto4 250. Got too good of a deal to pass on. I knew it was missing the carb and needed work. I got it home and removed the plastic and racks to get a better look and found it needed a battery, starter relay, cables, brakes and a couple other parts. Still thinking I could deal with it, I got the parts cheap on e bay. Put most of them on and of course wanted to change the oil before attempting to start the engine. While draining the oil a couple of metal pieces fell into the drain pan. They look like pieces of a spring, about the diameter of a pencil. I reached up into the engine by the drain hole and found 2 more small pieces. Any ideas what this might be? The pieces aren't chewed up and no metal shavings in the oil. But obviously something broke inside the engine. Could it be a centrifugal clutch spring? Also, while loading the atv on a trailer to take it home and after getting it home, I was checking the shifting and both the foot shifter and hand shifter seemed to go into every gear. I didn't know at that time that you are supposed to have the foot shifter in 1st gear when you put the hand shifter in reverse. I was doing it with the foot shifter in neutral. Now, the hand shifter won't go into reverse regardless of the position of foot shifter. Did I break something by shifting it wrong before? I would really appreciate any help before I tear it apart further then I might need to. Thank you.

 

Might be worth looking at the clutch. I just put heavier springs in the clutch on my Arctic Cat 700 to let it engage at a higher rpm. Can't imagine it's good to run with a couple missing. In fact if you find more missing than you already found, I'd want to find them, regardless of sourse

 

Thanks Hydrex. I will pull the side cover off and take a look. From the pieces I've found so far I suspect it's only one spring. If indeed that is what the pieces are. But I agree, I need to get all the pieces out. Thanks again for the help.

 

If you are planning to get her runnin good you might pickup a factory service manual, it can pay for itself in a very short time with the project you have....

 

O.k. Pulled off the side cover and there are NO springs on the centrifugal clutch. And more pieces in the cover. Also the holes where the springs hook into are broken open. What???? Would too high of RPM cause this? Or just age and wear and tear? Has any of you ever seen this before?? So, I guess I'll be replacing the centrifugal clutch assembly instead of just the springs.