small oil leak at #5 cylinder head stud

[Guest]

Hi all,

This oil leak has been annoying me for about 8 months now. I cleaned the engine and found fresh oil on top of the lowest fin near the #5 cylinder head stud (front, one in from the left). The chrome bar at the bottom of the pic is the case guard.

The cylinder head/crank case gasket looked good and there is no other leak. There is no oil below the fin at this stud. The bike has 18k miles.

Any ideas on where this oil is coming from or what to check next? I am hoping I don't have to remove the cylinder head.

Thanks.

[eil]

It's coming from somewhere and pooling there.

To locate the source, what you can do is clean up the engine as best you can and lightly sprinkle talc, baby powder, heck maybe flour in all the areas that it could be coming from, warm it up a bit, shut it off, and then give it a good look. I haven't tried this, but it's pretty standard oil-leak-finding advice around here.

I myself have stuffed pieces of white paper towel in suspected areas to locate a leak.

In your case, it looks like it pools there after the engine has been sitting for a bit. I'd look carefully at the breather cover gasket, valve cover gasket, and head gasket.

[cableguy]

I think the preferred method is foot powder in a spray can.

[chuck hahn]

Loose nut CAN let oil, leak from around the copper washers too..just to be considered. Highly unlikely a nut would just arbitrarily come loose though...but worth a check none the less.

[subforry]

Thanks all. I re-torqued the head nuts - nothing wrong there.

After a 2 days riding there is oil everywhere. What is noticeable is a drip from the timing chain adjuster knob. I am thinking chasing this leak might be a good place to start.

[sharpy]

U sure it's not the inner nut that has a o-ring on it. That be my thinking, as it will pool there at that exact spot

[tkent02]

The cam chain tensioners leak quite often, easy to fix. They pretty much all leak by now if they haven't been fixed. There is a tutorial on Cliff's site about it, easy as pie. Another common one is the tach drive, again easy with the tutorial.

[subforry]

U sure it's not the inner nut that has a o-ring on it. That be my thinking, as it will pool there at that exact spot

By inner nut do you mean one that is closer to the center of the head? I looked at the parts fiche but am confused.

[subforry]

The cam chain tensioners leak quite often, easy to fix. They pretty much all leak by now if they haven't been fixed. There is a tutorial on Cliff's site about it, easy as pie. Another common one is the tach drive, again easy with the tutorial.

Thanks. Found it and ordered parts. Also got the oil switch and cover o-rings.