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Hi Yamaha folks! I've been a Suzuki guy for a while, but just picked up a 2000 Blaster basket case last night. Looking for any insight or helpful advice you may have. Dude told me the top end was fine because it's "a Wiseco, not that cheap chinese sh*t", and the bottom was locked up. The top end is so "fine" that the jug slides right over the piston because the rings are stuck in their grooves. Mmmmhmm. The crank wouldn't move, but there was flash rust on a lot of the gears because the cover was left off, and after a healthy soak in PB Blaster CSP (Corrosion Stop and Prevent) I managed to get it freed up (yay!) but it will only rotate 7/8 of a full turn in either direction (boo!), and then it thuds to a stop against some as yet unidentified obstacle... I don't feel any play in the crank, webs don't appear to have any runout during the rotation I can achieve, and the rod bearing seems to have an acceptable amount of deflection. The wrist pin bearing was just shredded, and fell apart when punching out the pin. I did a little Google Fu and found a few posts around the internets about the kicker mechanism being a possible cause of the incomplete rotation issue. I suspect it's either that or one of the needles from the wrist pin bearing is lodged somewhere inconvenient. Or both. Or something entirely different and awful. Won't really know until I split the case, if I have to. I pulled the tranny drain and found a lot of filings on the magnetic plug end, so I'm soaking it in kero, gonna give it a good shake and drain it thru a coffee filter to see what comes out. I see some gouging on the case from where a chain let loose and mangled it a bit, but no cracks. And I only managed to shear off TWO bolts so far, and they're only on the Magneto cover, so no leakers I have a plethora of broken bolt and stud removers, but that's a project for AFTER determining the depths of depravity to which this poor old YFS has sunk. The (relative) pros: a decent set of FLY bars some PowerMadd handguards FMF pipe and slip on - Pipe is in excellent shape, muffler has been thoroughly defiled, and has no packing in it, but I can shape it up just fine. a DG bumper Twist throttle to save my arthritic thumb a mostly intact, mostly matching set of plastics (rear is a pretty rare dark blue vs the rest which is the more common bright blue and the nose is blue but painted black. CitriStrip and done.) Seat is in good shape, but I hate the cover, so it's getting redone. Very little monkeying done to the harness - had what I assume are dash light connectors mummified inside just shy of a mile of black tape. Cheap kill switch twist & taped to two cut wires from what was probably the OEM start/kill/lights switch. Have to look at the wiring diagram when I have a minute. Frame could use a little love in terms of paint, but appears intact and straight. Nothing a little strategic rattle canning won't solve. The cons: No rear grab bar missing/rusty/stripped hardware - I see a complete bolt set on eBay for $25, I think that's going to be necessary. no rear brakes at all - no caliper, no disc, no cable, no foot lever "Oh yeah, Blasters are notorious for missing their rear brakes" he says when I ask him about it after I've gotten home and found they are not in the box of parts. Riiiight. front tires appear to be worn out ice tires with nubs left of the studs, which sucks because I'd like to race it on the ice this winter on Lake George Obviously the motor is in pretty rough shape but I think it's workable.

Once again, because I hate finding forum threads that never delivered, the problem turned out to be a piece of the wrist pin bearing embedded in the case just as I suspected. The working theory is that the piston that was in it broke a ring as evidenced by old worn damaged spot on top of the piston, which has new rings on it. So someone reused the piston, which means they didn’t change the wrist pin bearing after a catastrophic failure of the rings, slapped it back together and probably sold it cheap to some kid who failed to properly pre-mix his oil and gas or didn’t at all. Blaster go boom. another plus, it came with a pretty sad looking FMF slip-on which cleaned up beautifully

Update: Went viral in IMGUR with this https://imgur.com/gallery/vsQXkVQ