Just thought I'd let you know about an experience a friend of mine had. He was on a Villiers twin with the throttle wide open (as you need to) and the engine went bang and he drifted to a halt with the clutch disengaged. He was transported home where he found a hole in his crankcase and in further investigation he discovered that a spoke had broken on his back wheel and a piece had been thrown forwards and managed to get sucked into the gaping hole of his carb, into the crankcase, jammed between the flywheel and the casing and punched a hole in it. He found the piece of spoke in the engine matching the broken rear wheel spoke.
Another friend of mine has a Triumph Bonneville which ended up with something getting into one of his combustion chambers and trashing it.
This became too real to me the other day after a long 80/85mph run on my RGS I found that the top fastener to the engine steady just above the carb had come unscrewed and fallen out. Now, I've got a mesh on my carb's inlet trumpet but it occurred to me that there must have been a risk of these bits getting into the carb.
Moral of stories - If you have a bike without a pukka filter and have a choice of carb inlet with or without a mesh gauze, get the mesh gauze or it may be your engine next time.
Have a nice day.
Alan
