I cleaned out several cubic inches of fibrous tarry sludge from around the front sprocket. After scraping out enough muck that I could see more or less what components were in there, I found a few things that I'm curious about:
- the front sprocket compartment cover (the piece I took off to get inside) appears to have been factory lined with some kind of squishy, fairly thick open-cell foam. I think it's orange, but it's saturated with oil and that might just be what color it is now. What is the purpose of this foam lining? Should I try to clean it up? Replace it? Just peel it out and throw it away?
- I had to remove five #8 bolts from around the outside perimeter of the cover to open up the compartment (as well as the shifter lever linkage). A sixth, larger bolt head in the middle of the cover didn't want to come out, so I left it alone and the cover came off fine without removing it. After taking the cover off and cleaning up the mess a bit, I found that it appears that the sixth, larger bolt was intended to seat into a threaded riser that was cast into the engine case and also help hold the cover on. In my case, it appears that something in the previous years of the bike's history hit the cover (or the cast bolt anchor riser) with enough force to shear the bolt anchor off from the rest of the engine case. The large bolt is bent about 70 degrees, and the remains of the bolt anchor are still threaded on the end of it. Does this thing serve any special purpose? Should I just leave it alone, or try to remove it?
- There's some sort of electrical component with epoxy-cast wire leads embedded in it that's bolted into the engine housing sort of behind the front sprocket. Based on where it is and where the wires head, my guess is that this is the transmission gear indicator. Can anyone confirm?
- It looks like my oil leak is certainly coming from in here. My best guess is that it's coming from the sprocket shaft seal where it passes in to the transmission case, but it could possibly also be the bolted-in electrical component mentioned in question 3. Are leaks here common? Are they worth trying to repair? How much work/time/money would it take to fix it?
- I'm also chasing an issue with the bike not starting reliably, and I'm unsure where the starter motor and AC generator are located on this engine. Next to the front sprocket compartment, there's another compartment cast into the engine casing, which contains a component that looks like a starter motor. It appears to be wired directly to the R/R however, with three wires. Is this thing actually the AC generator? If so, where's the starter motor?
Any info on any of these topics would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
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