Sent 2 pm's last night....saw you responded on here quite often, so i posted here too. I included my email addy in the pm if you would prefer to contact me that way...

As others have posted here, I've heard your customer service is top notch & i look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks

Until today I have not posted on this thread since April 22nd lol. If you PM'ed me twice last night then please allow me a decent amount of time to reply to your PM. I get around 10 a day, so it takes me a few hours to work through them all. Don't take this the wrong way but sending me PM's asking for help and then posting a few hours later "Think Werks will stand behind their product & take care of this for me?" without even giving me time to reply to your PM or PM's is not really too cool. As I tell everyone on these forums if you need or want an immediate response to an inquiry from any company in any industry please pickup the phone and call them. When you send someone a work related message on a forum at 6-7pm (which if you think about it is after most offices are closed) it might take them a little while to get back to you

In any case I'm sorry to hear about the issue that you experienced with your front bearing shield. Front bearings over the last few years have really starting to become a wear and tear item with all of the engine brands just like clutch bell bearings. I think that engines nowadays are turning so much RPM and generating so much power that with the small size of the front bearings we are just getting to the point that engine performance is exceeding their capabilities requiring frequent replacement. This is why we are seeing replacement costs for them drop into the $9+ range and products like the grease packed front bearing covers from I believe it is Buku come to market.

In an ideal world to increase longevity we would run a larger diameter bearing with bigger balls (probably something similar to the rear bearing size). We just have to figure out how to address the weight penalty that the larger diameter crank that it would require would bring with it lol.

A year or two ago on our front bearings we switched to a double shielded bearing design. So the bearing has an external rubber shield, the grease packed balls in the center and then an internal rubber shield which is identical to the outer. We do this so that if the front shield gets damaged/destroyed it is not possible for dirt to penetrate through the grease packed inner section and the second inner rubber shield to enter the engine. So in essence this means that even with a damaged bearing where the outer shield is completely gone your engines internals still have the same level of protection from dirt intake/damage that you would have had a year or two ago with a perfectly new single shielded bearing like we all used. Because of the potential for damage from something as little as a rock or pebble behind the flywheel, front bearings are considered wear and tear items and not something that we warranty to last for the life of the engine (or any specific amount of time). We have though as indicated above made the needed design modification to the front bearing by the addition of the inner shield assembly to ensure that your engines internals are able to survive just about the complete and total failure of a front bearing though.

So in regards to the front bearing again that is considered a wear and tear item and not a warranty item. If the bearing was defective it would have failed the first few tanks or something like that and I would just take care of it as a courtesy. After 1/2 or 3/4 gallon of running with the bearing still being fine just a small amount of pressure can caused the outer shield to pop off, unless the shield is damaged you can just spray out the bearing with carb cleaner, re-pack with grease and just pop the shield right back on. If you choose to replace it's a minimal cost part, so not something to be too concerned about replacing on a regular basis or adding to your periodic maintenance schedule. What is more of a concern to me though is that you mentioned in your post that your lower rod bushing is shot. What is leading you to this conclusion and how are you establishing that?

Ron....
Thanks for the reply. It seems my post was taken out of context...dam digital age...

I wasn't implying that you or your company would not be helpful nor that i thought you were neglecting to respond. The reason for the post after the pm's was simply that i didn't know which was the best way to contact you. Sorry if it came across as a dig at you, that was definitely not my intention (after re-reading it, i can see how it could be mistaken).

That being said, would you feel comfortable trusting that the inner seal kept out the dust from the track while it was sucking enough air to kill the engine immediately if hit with the smallest shot of electrical cleaner behind the flywheel? If what you're telling me is accurate, then i should be able to put a new front bearing in & have the same performance as another who did not have this premature seal failure. If this is "normal wear & tear" in a front bearing, would it be safe to assume that i should stock these in my pit box & be prepared to change them before the main of every week's club race? Not gonna happen....
I appreciate that you're doing what you can to keep the pricepoint reasonable for us club level racers. But if this is the quality of the parts that go into your product, then i'm afraid I'll have to pass. I was hoping you would make good on this obvious defect and, at minimum, replace the bearing for me. Instead, you chose to attempt to blow smoke up my a$$ and tell me i'm SOL. That, was not cool.

If your best solution to a 1 race old front bearing failure is that it's "normal wear & tear", i believe i will look elsewhere for my engine tuning advice. Sad to see a company like Werks slipping & not standing by their product....

Why is it that any time they screw up their Werks motors they think they can just pop on here and ask for a handout? Over the last 5 years or so Ron has graciously repaired/ replaced engines for people, out of his own pocket, as a display of customer support. Why can't people see this for what it was instead of a way to try to get free service? There isn't another engine brand on his site that has the direct line of contact down to the people other than Werks. Nowhere else can you complain to the HMFIC. If this happened to any other motor the owner would replace the front bearing and keep on truckin.

FWIW, I don't even run Werks engines. I do have one- a guy at the track gave me a B5 when he saw the problems I was having with my OS engines. /irony

+1 Some dudes are hard to fathom.

It's a 1 in 10,000 fault on an out-sourced part not manufactured directly by the company.
Front bearings are a weak spot in every motor due to the ingress of dirt and dust. They start to go down hill after very few tanks, then start to leak and progressively fail.
Some fail a lot earlier than others (the 1 in 10,000 or the "Monday morning run" as some like to call it).

Yes - I sell Werks products in my own country, and I can tell you right now - having dealt with Ron personally, you would be hard pressed to find another person in this industry who is more passionate about his product, or dedicated to customer service.

If your going to give up on a wonderful product because one small out-sourced part fails unexpectedly, then good luck to you my friend.
Your going to have a long and lonely walk in this game if that's your attitude.

Bearing failure at 3/4 gallon? Hardly me screwing the engine up. It was barely even broken in. I have no idea exactly when the seal let go...i don't tear my engine down after every tank of fuel. All i know is, if 1 race night is considered "wear & tear", I'll count that as a $200 lesson learned & move on to a more top shelf, trusted manufacturer. It's no wonder they say nitro is dying out....i never had an esc cap out on me after 20 minutes run time & get told "sorry...wear & tear item"

Front bearings are a bit of a crap shoot for a variety of reasons. I replaced one of mine with a TKO recently and after 1 tank of fuel, it popped the dust guard (seal)off. Was not a rich tune or any other scenario that would normally be tough on front bearing seals. I blew about TKO bearings on another thread and quickly got put in my place, as I should. The buku grease caps are a great fix for almost all front bearing issues. I'll never leave home without em....

Never seemed to have these issues before....just getting back into the nitro scene after about 10 years. I agree schultz, the buku grease job sounds like a good fix. Unfortunately, the m2c flywheel i'm using actually recesses over the crankcase , making the buku unusable. An even better six would be to use bearings that can withstand the torture for more than a 1/2 gallon at a time.....the search is on...

Like sschultz is saying - it happens.

When you have a tiny .21 ci engine producing nearly 3 hp and spinning in excess of 40,000 rpm - things can go wrong and things will wear.

A lot of people take these little motors for granted. They run for hours under dusty conditions pulling those revs and putting out that sort of power.
If you scaled that sort of power production per cubic inch up to 1:1 with those sort of revs there is nothing else really like it.
Taking it to the extreme (which no one does of course), you should probably be stripping your motor down after every heat (like an NHRA top fuel or funny car motor).

Comparing one of these little internal combustion engines to an ESC is like comparing chalk with cheese.
If you want racing without the drama of parts replacement or on the hop strip downs and maintenance at the track, then perhaps electric is more suited to your needs. I'm not having a go - just saying.

Wow, nice response. Now I'm blowing smoke up your a$$? I've never lied to anyone about anything nor as you put it blown smoke up anyones a$$. Bearings fail, that's part of life. It just happens. Does not matter what engine you run, does not really matter how old they are. I guess it is acceptable when your clutch bearings, diff bearings, wheel bearings and every other type of bearing fails on your car but for some reason a tiny little front bearing rotating at 20-35k rpm is never supposed to fail lol? It happens, it's part of life. Do you have to replace your front bearing every time that you go to the track and all of the other nonsense that you are saying? No, but 3/4 gallon is not a tank nor is it just one day at the track. The bottom line is you do need to periodically inspect things just like you do with the rest of your car right? And I will ad that if you do find something that looks out of the norm then you should replace it. This is the difference between being consistently finishing races and breaking all the time.

To answer your question

******
That being said, would you feel comfortable trusting that the inner seal kept out the dust from the track while it was sucking enough air to kill the engine immediately if hit with the smallest shot of electrical cleaner behind the flywheel? If what you're telling me is accurate, then i should be able to put a new front bearing in & have the same performance as another who did not have this premature seal failure.
*******

Can you tell me how you are sure that you did not get a rock or piece of dirt behind your flywheel that did not cause the shield to pop off. Try popping it back on with just your finger tip to see exactly how little force it takes which is why I say it is just something that can just happen and not a warranty thing. Beyond that though as far as your question is concerned the answer is yes, if your shield fell off any dirt that might have gotten in the bearing should be contained in the grease in the bearing and would not have made it past the inner rubber shield. People have front bearings completely disintegrate like the cages come completely apart. Replace it, engine runs fine. It's really not the big deal that you seem to be trying to make out of it which brings me to....



Now having said that I told you that the bearing is a wear and tear item and was not covered under warranty but the thing that is more of a concern to me was the fact that you mentioned initially that your rod bushing was shot. That is the bigger issue and why I was asking you for details about it which you seem to have decided to completely overlook when you decided to fixate on berating me about a bearing that you can buy for all of $9 and replace in minutes. I was interested in getting additional detail about this because if indeed there was some issue with the bushing on your rod that could somehow be contributed to the front bearing shield popping off I was going to offer to take care of it because I do stand behind our products and try to help all of our customers out as much as possible. So next time before you decide to flip out on a person you might want to read what they wrote a little bit better.

Thanks for mentioning this and Rcdiver if you do not know TKO bearings are good quality, aftermarket bearings. Things just happen when it comes to bearings and again it is not me blowing smoke up your a$$ when I say that. Now instead of berating me and having this turn into a big you know what match, please give me some info on the rod bushing issue/concern that you mentioned so that we can see if there really is an issue that I need to help you out with so that when you do go back and run your engine we can be sure that you will not have any issues.

Lol, this situation I think is more of a misunderstanding or possibly lack of experience running nitro stuff but you would be surprised by some of the stuff that I get to deal with. Last week I had a guy call me that knew he ingested a glow plug element which totaled his engine asking me what I could do for for him. I explained that having a glow plug element fall into his engine was not really an engine warranty issue lol but what would he like me to do. His response "oh I know it was not the engines fault but I was hoping that you would send me a replacement engine" I was not really sure how to respond to that one lol. Eventually it came out that he was just new to the hobby and did not really understand tuning yet. I offered him a replacement at 50% off to help get him back up and running. He told me he would think about it and call me back lol!

Since when is there a warranty on anything race related? Ron's engines are top notch, period. I have had front bearing issues and just change it. They are indeed a wear item. Racing is not cheap.

I'm a complete and total noob when it comes to nitro engines. I bought my first Werks engine a few months ago, and just now having decent weather to get it broken in and tuned. I'm following Ron's break in and tuning procedure - everything is going great!
I have PM'd Ron 4 or 5 times asking him questions regarding his break in method, and he has replied to every PM that I've sent him. Werks customer service is, by far, the best I've ever dealt with!!! Even when you email Werks!

With the very little knowledge I have with RC and nitro, I know that bearings are wear items. Especially with the constant abuse they receive - heat, dirt, high RPM's, etc.

See, I have learned something new. Gotta make sure I check that dirt seal on the front bearing of the engine!!! LOL!!!

Hey guys, can you guys educate me on which werks engine has the most torque. My track is medium in size but there are plenty of jumps that engines without a good bottom end just fail at. Can anybody help?