wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
Those who follow every breath I take and every turn I make in my life, despite your best efforts to ignore me, may recall my oil leak post some weeks back, wherein it was theorized that I was an idiot for re-using the o-ring on the starter when I put the replacement in. Of course, the replacement was covered in my bad starter post last summer.
So I got a new o-ring, tore the shit down to remove the starter and put in the new o-ring, and I'm feeling all good about myself, life, the world, and everything. I did notice that the body of the starter was pretty damn clean-looking for something supposedly the source of an oil leak, but it had to be that o-ring, so on it went, and back together the bike went. This was late January.
Yet I still find little piddles of oil on the garage floor. And the side of the bike still gets all nasty-looking and ookey. Like a '70's Harley. Or a '60s MG. But I replaced the o-ring. I can't still be leaking oil!!!! But look at my left lower fairing . . . . .
So today, instead of enjoying this damned gorgeous day being out and about (although truth be told, it's pretty damned windy out there) I yanked everything out from behind the engine YET FOOKING AGAIN and see what I can see. Ya know what I found? Do ya? Huh?
One of the bolts on the cover plate for the rear balancer was less than finger-tight. The others were tight, but one was loose, and sure enough, the case was kinda spludgey right around that area. Like the thread title says, if it ain't one thing, it's another. Kinda has be, actually.
Removed the cover, and the whole mating surface is clean except within an eighth inch or so of the loose bolt, and it's dirty around there. Evidence of oil passage. The loose bolt was in the lower left in this picture. The one full of oil . . . . Oil would pool in the valley under the starter (leading to the idea that the replacement starter was the cause) and run out the side when I put the bike own on the sidestand. It's not a LOT of oil, certainly not enough to run the bike out between regular changes, but it's gotten messy.
Not having a new gasket handy, the old one was not too badly torn, although it did have a couple of small areas where it stuck to the metal. I should replace it, but I can't get one today, and I need the bike back together. I cleaned the mating surfaces and reused the gasket with a touch of black RTV, replaced the cover and started reassembly.
I'm not quite done, I got hungry and decided to stop for a break.
That's a lie. . . . I decided to stop for a break so I wouldn't take each and every tool I have and beat the motorcycle with them. I was 10 minutes from being finished, and dropped a bolt down into the space under the throttle bodies. I was remounting the intake air pressure sensor, the one that lives on the fuel rail, and dropped one of its bolts. The neighbors learned a few new words, or least some combinations. My magnet stick can't reach it, or more correctly I can't see the bolt in order to direct the magnet stick, and blind poking has not retrieved it.
So it's time for a sandwich, a break with my buds on the forum, and then I get to tear all that fooking shit off again that I just tore off and put back on.
Yes, that sensor would sit there forever with just one bolt, but that's just not . . . . correct. A half hour from now I may be wishing I'd decided otherwise, though.
Go ahead. Laugh. None of you has ever dropped something into an impossible to get location, have you? (At least I didn't drop anything into the crankcase while the balancer cover was off. . .)
So I got a new o-ring, tore the shit down to remove the starter and put in the new o-ring, and I'm feeling all good about myself, life, the world, and everything. I did notice that the body of the starter was pretty damn clean-looking for something supposedly the source of an oil leak, but it had to be that o-ring, so on it went, and back together the bike went. This was late January.
Yet I still find little piddles of oil on the garage floor. And the side of the bike still gets all nasty-looking and ookey. Like a '70's Harley. Or a '60s MG. But I replaced the o-ring. I can't still be leaking oil!!!! But look at my left lower fairing . . . . .
So today, instead of enjoying this damned gorgeous day being out and about (although truth be told, it's pretty damned windy out there) I yanked everything out from behind the engine YET FOOKING AGAIN and see what I can see. Ya know what I found? Do ya? Huh?
One of the bolts on the cover plate for the rear balancer was less than finger-tight. The others were tight, but one was loose, and sure enough, the case was kinda spludgey right around that area. Like the thread title says, if it ain't one thing, it's another. Kinda has be, actually.
Removed the cover, and the whole mating surface is clean except within an eighth inch or so of the loose bolt, and it's dirty around there. Evidence of oil passage. The loose bolt was in the lower left in this picture. The one full of oil . . . . Oil would pool in the valley under the starter (leading to the idea that the replacement starter was the cause) and run out the side when I put the bike own on the sidestand. It's not a LOT of oil, certainly not enough to run the bike out between regular changes, but it's gotten messy.
Not having a new gasket handy, the old one was not too badly torn, although it did have a couple of small areas where it stuck to the metal. I should replace it, but I can't get one today, and I need the bike back together. I cleaned the mating surfaces and reused the gasket with a touch of black RTV, replaced the cover and started reassembly.
I'm not quite done, I got hungry and decided to stop for a break.
That's a lie. . . . I decided to stop for a break so I wouldn't take each and every tool I have and beat the motorcycle with them. I was 10 minutes from being finished, and dropped a bolt down into the space under the throttle bodies. I was remounting the intake air pressure sensor, the one that lives on the fuel rail, and dropped one of its bolts. The neighbors learned a few new words, or least some combinations. My magnet stick can't reach it, or more correctly I can't see the bolt in order to direct the magnet stick, and blind poking has not retrieved it.
So it's time for a sandwich, a break with my buds on the forum, and then I get to tear all that fooking shit off again that I just tore off and put back on.
Yes, that sensor would sit there forever with just one bolt, but that's just not . . . . correct. A half hour from now I may be wishing I'd decided otherwise, though.
Go ahead. Laugh. None of you has ever dropped something into an impossible to get location, have you? (At least I didn't drop anything into the crankcase while the balancer cover was off. . .)
