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I recently discovered oil seeping from the generator cover and oil pan on my 21 with 8K miles. Torqued up all of the bolts, a number were not close to spec, and cleaned everything. Seems to have stopped. Looks like I lost about 100 ml since the last change about 2K miles ago. I bought a tube of that blue stuff for the future.
I've recently run into a leak of my own, I've looked into the Hylomar and I'm sold on its ability to seal a gasket. Until I get to my next oil change to inspect and seal, I'm curious if anyone has been experiencing such a leak.
To start, I noticed oil on the back of the oil pan bolt thread holes on the right side of the engine and only the right side.
From inspecting, it appeared to be coming from the level/drain bolt on the front right of the engine block, not the one in the front of the oil pan. Inspecting the area more, it looked like the oil was then coming from the gap between the cooling fins below the timing cover and at the front of the oil pan where they meet the block. Thinking it was the oil pan I tightened the oil pan bolts and the exposed bolts on the timing cover to the 9 lb-ft at the higher end of the factory torque spec.
I then de-greased the side, front, bottom of the engine, and the bottom engine guard. I washed the whole bike while I was at it. Seeing it clean, I rode it around the block and let it sit for a few minutes and no oil, nothing on the engine guard either. The next day I go for a ride, gentle for the warm up, then at the end of the 10 mile warm up I check and BAM: OIL!
BUT FROM WHERE???!
The oil appears to be coming from the bolt ends! When it's cooled the oil goes away as if there were nothing there, not even a drop on the engine guard!
Perhaps oil pressure is pushing it through the oil pan gasket and a flaw is letting it ride up the bolt ends??
I did not see any oil glistening from the bolt in the front of the block after it was cleaned.
The first day I saw the leak I doubled checked the bolt to the 22 lb-ft spec and it was fine.
Has anyone else experienced this and found the source? If I'm missing the obvious and it is the engine block bolt or oil pan/timing gasket as originally suspected, please tell me.
Both of those large plugs require NEW CRUSH WASHERS every time. The crush washer is designed to be “crushed” 1 time. It seals perfectly that 1 time. Then, you throw it away and replace with a new one.
You can measure its dimensions and buy generic crush washers cheap on Amazon.
Steve gave you the old mechanic guys trick.
Clean and meticulously dry the engine.
Get baby powder and puff it out of the bottle onto the area where the leak appears.
You don’t have to douse it, you just want a nice dusting.
Take her for your brief ride again. I emphasize brief here. Just long enough to generate the leaking but not long enough to make a lot of oil leak out!
The freshly leaked oil will pass right through the powder dust and leave a very visible trail. You will then know exactly where it is coming from.
This is why I emphasized “brief ride”.
When diagnosing oil leaks in this manner with baby powder, less oil is more better than more oil. Easier to see the point of origin!
Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll get to it when I have the ability.
I recently did the not smart thing and rode it a few hundred miles with several hard pulls with frequent stops to check the leak, it ran wonderfully. I did notice on inspection after that the oil filter cover has a minor dab coming from it as well, so looks like I'll be doing an early oil change and I'll address the issues.
The leak seemed to be no better or worse and I have not lost much if any oil in my sight glass on level ground, it's still at the top line, so the leak is minor for now.
The left cylinder did end up making a clapping noise when pulling from a stop after sitting in traffic for a while. Like something was lose, but after a cool down it went away.....
Here is an update that I resolved a bit ago and kept forgetting to post:
The oil leak was coming from the oil pan seal. After my initial tightening of the oil pan bolts the leak stopped.
The reason the oil was coming up from the thread ends was because there was oil hanging out on the threads. As the bike heated up it pushed the oil out of the top threads creating a pool on the thread holes and the wind splashing it about. After cleaning off the oil from the 3 bolts the oil "leak" I was having has disappeared.
The big bolt was not the cause. Just excess oil. After cleaning the bolts and topping off the oil everything has stayed fine for nearly 2 months.
