I am helping a friend with his '97 350 Big Bear ( no hi/Lo). He bought privately used,two weeks after the purchase one of the shafts that hold one of the gear sets for the starter system broke off and tore out the stator. We drained the oil and replaced the stator. We then ran it 5 times for 5 minute intervules around the yard and drained the oil 6 times. Each time the oul was drained we had parts of the housing the size of peanuts. On the 6&7th oil change we had no debree so we ranit our the yard for 1 1/2 hours and it quite. Now we have no compression,spark yes, timing chain intact,cam looks good with cover off, rocker arms and springs in one piece. After doing a dry compressin test I put oil in the cylinder and still no compression. I put a piece of 18 ga. wire in the spark plug hole to check for a hole in the piston but felt no void. Now what do I test before I tear this beast down??????

 

The metal pieces had to be coming from some where, my guess would be the rings. Or possibly the barrel, if it was damaged from the metal pieces that were floating around. I would pull the head and take a look you should be able to get a good enough look to determine what you need to do next. By pulling just the head you should only need to replace the head gasket if this doesn’t help.

Good Luck

 

The metal pieces are alumimium and are the post supports that hold the two gear clusters.

 

Rule #1: Don't run it after finding metal in the oil. I'm sure that you now need a new crank, rods, piston, cam and trans.

 

Howdy Leroy...sounds like that quad is in a world of hurt....remove the exhaust and the carb and turn the engine over by hand till the piston is at TDC...look in the exhaust port and the intake port...I'm betting the piston skirt is missing a few parts...got my fingers crossed for you...good luck..
BB

 

Thanks for the advice I will do that Saturday and let you know you on Wednesday as I will be out of town. I'll let you guys know what I find. Have a great weekend and "Keep the rubber side down"