Oil usage

[alnmike]

Hy guys. Got back from a 1500 mile trip with my 650. Did a few spirited runs over 100, with one stretch being a good 20 minutes long. Now that the bike is back in my garage, it's burning oil at a rate of a few ounces every time I goto work (20 miles roundtrip). I changed the oil prior to the trip. The bike has the same power it had before the trip.

I'm thinking it's a stuck ring, or I don't know what else. I'm in the process of getting a compression test done. There is no discernible oil leak on the outside of the engine, took care of that last year.

Am I completely off base, or go ahead with comp test and report back?

[Nessism]

Compression test is a good idea. Needless to say your valves need to be properly adjusted or your compression may be off (and your engine damaged to). So to verify the compression you should get the engine good and warm and hold the throttle open when performing the test. If the compression is good the problem may be valve stem oil seal leakage. You will have to pull the head to fix it but it could be worse. If the compression is low, try putting 1 teespoon of oil into each cylinder and testing again. If the compression comes up you have bad rings. If the compression doesn't come up, the valves are bad.

Good luck

[alnmike]

I adjusted the valves late last year and have only put maybe 2-3k miles on it since. Know what the correct adapter for the comp tester is?

[Nessism]

The 650 takes 12 mm spark plugs. Don't forget to heat the engine up and hold the throttle open while testing.

[alnmike]

New symptom: the left exhaust is smoking while choked, the right is not. Haven't been able to get a hold of a reasonably priced compression tester and haven't had time off work to look harder.

[Macmatic]

New symptom: the left exhaust is smoking while choked, the right is not. Haven't been able to get a hold of a reasonably priced compression tester and haven't had time off work to look harder.

I think Sears and Harbor Freight both have reasonably priced compression testers.

/\/\ac

[alnmike]

OK, ended up going to Sears and grabbing their kit, unfortunately, Harbor Freight doesnt ship to AK

Anyway, got my compression readings done, let my engine warm up for about 5 minutes before the test and did open the throttle fully.

Trying to make a good chart in this format:

........................^Front wheel^
Cylinder........... 1 ........ 2 .......... 3........... 4 (Probably not correct cylinder numbers)
Dry PSI ......... 165...... 155 ........155....... 165
Wet (oil) .........200..... 175 ....... 175 ...... 180
Difference ....... 35 ...... 20 ......... 20........ 15
........................\/ Rear wheel \/

These are good readings to me, my question is do I have something going on with cylinder 1 since theres almost twice the difference? But, its also has good compression. I double checked the 200 and 180 readings afterwords, both correct. I used 3 in 1 oil, and not engine oil, since it was much easier to pour from the container.

Thinking it may be valve stem oil leakage or something else. The plugs looked great, I changed them when I did the valve clearances like 2k miles ago, no oil deposits at all. Ive used a quart of oil in the last 250 miles or so, so its not a minor problem, but its apparently not being burned enough to foul plugs or leaking anywhere.

Oil history: I put two changes of mobil 1 synthetic since i bought the bike, and before the 1500 mile trip, I threw in mobil 1 diesel non-synthetic since I had some clutch slippage, the oil disappearing is only on this fill. Was going to replace clutch springs, but I stripped out one of the damn phillips on the case using my impact driver, so thats for the far future.

[Nessism]

Nothing wrong with those rings. That leaves valve stem seals. Unfortunately, you are going to have to pull the head to change them.

One big problem some people have with R/R'ing the head is the cost of the gaskets. Aftermarket gaskets are of questionable quality but OE gaskets are nose bleed expensive.

[alnmike]

Is it an intensive process? Do I just need to order the valve stem seals and head gasket, or are there more items that probably get replaced while im in there? Thanks.

[Steve]

When you pull the head, you will most likely also bump the cylinders and break the base gasket. You have to also pull the cylinder block to change the base gasket, but that also gives you the opportunity to change the o-rings that are the usual culprits for base gasket leaks.

I have had decent luck with the full gasket kit from Z1 (I think it's an Athena kit), but do yourself a favor and also order the OEM o-rings for the base gasket. They seem to work a lot better than the ones that come in the kit.

.

[alnmike]

Im definately not a mechanic heh, so most of these names are drawing a blank, a google search shows what a valve seal and base gasket are, where are those orings on a parts fiche?

And im assuming i need to take the engine off to do this work?

[Steve]

Engine does not need to be removed from the frame.


Sorry for misleading you.

I just checked the parts fiche for your bike, it does not have the o-rings that my 850s have.

But you will still need to replace the base gasket.

Oh, referring to an earlier post: your references to cylinder numbers are correct.

.

[alnmike]

Ok, just to make sure. Is number 7 in this picture the base gasket your talking about, I hope its not at that price.
Number 15 in this picture is the valve oil seal that is the most likely cause of my problem?

How critical is it to get this replaced, or can I still ride to work while parts are incoming? Will this damage my engine, since the spark plugs are clean, or is it just going straight into the exhaust? Since oil is going into the exhaust, is exhaust getting pushed into the top of my valves? Ive noticed my oil went black around the same time this situation developed.

Edit: Also, will I be needing any special tools to compress the valve springs to disassemble them to get the oil seal, or whatever it is that ill end up doing?
And would there be another cause for oil disappearances?

[Nessism]

Number 7 is the head gasket. The base gasket is in the cylinder page.

You can still ride the bike as long as you want. At some point the bike will start to foul spark plugs so that's not cool.

It wouldn't hurt to move to 20W-50 for the summer, as long as it's hot where you live. Might slow down the oil burning some.

[alnmike]

Base gasket is number 4 here? Isnt that even further down from the valves than the head gasket then, or am I confused? How does one even break that to the point of needing to replace it if theres so much metal between where your working and it?