RE: MOKI RADIAL Care and Maintenence
MOKI S215 BULLETIN
*IMPORTANT*
PLEASE take a few minutes of your time and check your old S215s if you could.
We have found that the old generation, part of the ones with the thinner exhaust tubes and made until a couple of years ago (we are lacking a threshold serial number unfortunately) have the following problem:
The valve lifters/cam followers were made with a steel roller-ball at the end of them. These balls can and will break lose, going on a rampage and damaging your cam follower sleeve (sticking the valves), the cam drum, the cam gears, leading to a very expensive overhaul.
This can simply be avoided by:
Rotate the prop to where the cam lifter you want to check is unloaded. You only need to check one to find out what version you have. Remove the pushrod by lifting the rocker. Now unbolt the cam-follower housing with an open wrench, these are regular threads. Do not simply pull the lifter out; if it is a new style lifter it might hurt the seal on the cam-follower housing if you do so. Remove the housing/lifter combo instead.
Now check the lifter. If it is a “simple” rod with a rounded end on the bottom you are good to go. If you find the “ball-pen” style end please ground the engine for the time being and contact us for replacements. We opened up a can of worms here and have a large order of replacement lifters open with Moki right now. Should be here soon.
When you bolt the cam-follower housing back in place make sure to test the action of the cam lifter. If you tighten too much it might get stuck. In that case tighten as much as you can while having a free lifter and use Locktite to secure the housing in the thread.
Best regards,
Götz