GS550 oil/gas leak?

[Guest]

Just picked up a 77 GS550 about a month ago (had been on a 4 year riding hiatus due to kids) and noticed that the left side of the upper engine/plug wires would be coated with a thin layer of oil/gas after every ride. As the engine itself is pretty dirty with numerous burnoff/deposits, hard to tell where the leak is coming from. Anyone know if this motor has a common leak somewhere up front/left side? Left carb/float bowl also leaks a bit too if that has anything to do with it. Bike has just over 10K miles as it did sit for quite some time but runs great when warm...takes forever to warm up though. Great to be back on the saddle again though! Can post pics if later.

[tkent02]

It's just going to need 38 years worth of maintenance done to it. Leaks are easy enough to fix, most of them just take an hour or so.

[yakobo5]

Plug/Wire number one that gets a coat of grease/gas after every ride. Other than that and the float bowl leak, bike rides great.

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[uk gs nut]

Could be half moon seals under the 4 chrome cam end covers. Or the 4 outer cylinder head nuts, they have copper washers to seal the main oil feed to cams etc. Have you re-torqued the cyl head ?.

[yakobo5]

Could be half moon seals under the 4 chrome cam end covers. Or the 4 outer cylinder head nuts, they have copper washers to seal the main oil feed to cams etc. Have you re-torqued the cyl head ?.

THX!...will check these things this weekend!

[JTGS850GL]

Clean it and see what gets dirty again.

[yakobo5]

Clean it and see what gets dirty again.

Will do...I did try cleaning the corrosion/oil stains with simple green initially but that burnt oil/corrosion wouldn't come off...should I be using something else?

[JTGS850GL]

Spray with engine degreaser. Once it's cleaned and dried you can see if the leaks are obvious. If not, then dust the engine with foot or baby powder and the leaks will show up right away.