With a recent compensator upgrade, and the debris being magnetized, along with the need for a new battery I think you have a few possible causes of the issues you are asking about.

First, when a compensator is changed out it may not align precisely like the original. This is why there are shims and the need to measure your primary chain runout. Your chain could be misaligned and rubbing the inner primary. This misalignment also wears the chain abnormally.

Your fragments that are magnetic are more than likely fragments of the rotors magnets that may have shifted, come loose, or in some cases the stator bolts break or back off and strike the magnets. This also chews up the stator. Often when the stator is bad you'll smell a burnt transformer smell in the primary's fluid.

This leads to the battery. Did you test it under load to check it? If the charging system is under load, a shorted or dieing battery can put a strain on the stator and overheat it. If there's anything wrong with the wiring and / or the regulator it can damage both, so testing is important to know for sure where the issue lies.

Sometimes the symptoms are the problems, and sometimes they're not the cause.

 

whats spooky about metal on the primary drain plug magnet is that the amount on the plug is just a small indication of the problem.....the magnets on the stator cover pick up metal as well....

 

We'll be riding and checking after 500 miles come spring...

 

Hey CarlTex

I've got the same issue now, pulled out my primary drain and chunks of magnetized metal, 4 chunks rather large on drain bolt magnet. Can you let me know what this turned out to be? Trying to decide whether to try and fix on own, or take to the dealer.

 

Usually a piece of magnet will break off from the stater bowl and will be churned around in the primary case, getting crushed more and more as it gets caught in the compensator and chain.
The other place that chunks of metal will come off of is the spline shaft that extends out of the tranny, through the forward pulley and into the clutch bowl. The splines are not magnetic themselves but look a lot like the picture in post #8 here. Little pieces of the spline will break off and follow the same path at the broken magnet parts.
Obviously, ya can't put the fragments back. The stator bowl will continue make electricity as small pieces of the magnets break off. The spline shaft can get to a point where your clutch bowl doesn't have adequate support and the splines will break off faster, but that is quite a long time down the road. You can pull the clutch bowl off the check just to get an idea how fast that shaft crumbles.

 

Anyone else notice this thread is about 5 yrs old?

 

yep !

 

Yep, but if Santacruz has the same issue, it couldn't hurt to ask.