Oil leak on drivers front corner of engine

[GeorgiaGuzzi]

Got my Quota back running. It now has GP style shifting, one up, the rest down. Didn’t open up the transmission at all. Anyways, I’m drifting in my own thread! 🤦‍♂️

After running up and down the driveway a few times easily I did the post surgery inspection. There is oil running down the left (if you’re sitting on it) front corner of the motor. Is it the timing pickup? I installed a gasket and put silicon on both sides of it. And I made sure the mating surface on the head was clean.

Any suggestions for other things to check? It couldn’t be the jug could it?

[pehayes]

Oil pressure sender?
Oil distribution "Y" line?

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[GeorgiaGuzzi]

Oil pressure sender?
Oil distribution "Y" line?

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

I’ll check them. Thanks

[bmc5733946]

The timing sensor only recieves oil splash, the oil pressure sending unit and the oil feed hoses receive pressurized oil. Does it leak while running?

Brian

[Wayne Orwig]

After running up and down the driveway a few times easily I did the post surgery inspection. There is oil running down the left (if you’re sitting on it) front corner of the motor. Is it the timing pickup? I installed a gasket and put silicon on both sides of it. And I made sure the mating surface on the head was clean.

That pickup is shimmed. As in, you need to put back the gaskets and such exactly like they came off. There is usually a shim or two, and a paper gasket or so. Even the paper gasket is basically a shim. The o-ring on it is supposed to seal it. The o-ring sits in a groove in the block. I have had the aluminum shim stick, trapping the oring on the block, so you would swear there is no oring. But closer inspection reveals there is a shim is still stuck to the block. If you put in too many shims or gaskets it may be hard to start.
They often leak just enough to be annoying. But if it is badly sealed, sump pressure might push out a lot of oil past the pickup. If it is a bad leak, I would first inspect the oil sender, or even the oil pressure feed above the cam chain.

[GeorgiaGuzzi]

Thanks for the reply’s everyone. The items Wayne mentioned I did NOT do. I replaced the sensor while I had the bike apart. I thought someone had just put a really thick gasket on it before, so I made sure o ring was on it, put a thin paper washer with three bond on either side, and tightened it down.

It does not leak at idle rpms. Just when it gets into running rpms. And it’s not a pouring leak, just a few drops or five when parked after running down the highway.

However, I stopped at the gas station to put fuel in it and it wouldn’t restart. Manual petcocks were open. Fuel pump working fine. New fuel filter. It starts almost right away, then dies immediately. When my wife showed up with the trailer it started right up. However, one cylinder was dropping in and out. I’m thinking it’s a plug wire. 😡 Oh well, at least progress is being made, I’m learning about the bike, and I’ll know it inside and out by the time it’s sorted!

[usedtobefast]

Here is a pic from the service manual.  Shows a way to measure that gap.   





And here is a pic from the parts manual ... only thing that should be in there (between the sensor and the case) is the o-ring (#13) and 1 shim (#14).   Some places call the "shim" a "gasket", but it really is a very thin metal shim vs a fiber type gasket.  And both pics show the shims come in various thicknesses ... because why would you just want 1 size!    





So you might need to do some measuring, cleaning, measuring, order proper shim and o-ring, etc. 

On mine, it was weeping some, enough to create a bit of a mess.  So I took it off cleaned everything up, used a new o-ring, re-used the same thin metal shim, and a wee bit of ThreeBond 1211 liquid gasket.  It has been dry for the last 1000 or so miles. 

[pehayes]

Clean everything in the suspect area as best you can.  Fastidiously!  Spray with the cheapest foot tald powder you can find at the drug store.  Not on the exhaust header.  Go for a ride.  The leak will show up as a brown stain in the otherwise white foot powder.  Clean and repair.

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[GeorgiaGuzzi]

Thanks very much y’all! There was no O-ring installed by yours truly. I’m going to order the proper O-ring, clean up the metal shim and old gasket, reuse it with some three bond, put some cheap talc powder down and take it for ride and see what, if anything, leaks.

The new sensor did get grazed slightly.



Thanks also to Wayne Orwig for the help offline! There are truly some super knowledgeable and helpful people on here. Many kudos to all.