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Hello All,
I will apologize in advance for this long post –I’ve been struggling with thisproblem for 3 months…
Firstly,I've been using this site to help with variousproblems on my 1980 GS550 for about 6 years -Thanks! Until now I havenever needed to post a question (because I’ve found everything else) but thismight be the sort of rabbit hole that causes me to abandon my Low dollar wonderbike experiment. I am no stranger to tackling unusual problems; oilleaking up hill, compression limited spark plugs, etc. on my othervehicles but this crazy leak has me at the end. I've put over 30k mileson this MC since I paid $175 for it 6 years ago and thought then that I'd throwit away when something like this happened. But I've come to like it toomuch and have modified it to be exactly how I want it. It also runs fantastic.
The problem:
Late last season it developed an oil leak and gotprogressively worse –to the point where it was leaking over a pint every 100 miles. It was all over the chain, tire and the frontsprocket cover. Based on the age of theMC and the location of the leak I assumed shifter seal but ordered all 4 sealsfor that area (clutch rod, output shaft x2, and the shifter seal). Upon disassembly the grime was so bad that Icould not really tell where the oil was coming from but saw sings of all theseals leaking so figuring to replace them all seemed like a good call.
In April I replaced them all. The leak was not fixed. With everything cleaned I could see after ashort ride that oil was pooling up on the small ledge at the bottom of thetransmission case and seemed to originate from that shift seal, then drippeddown along the side of the oil pan and back onto everything else. Thinking at this point that perhaps there wasan issue with the seal surface on the shift shaft, I replaced the Suzukisupplied seal with an over-the-counter seal that was 8mm tall instead of12. Another test ride and it stillleaked –still looking like that shift seal. I checked the areas where the other seals were replaced and I could notsee any conclusive evidence that they were contributing to this problem. The next fix attempt was to use aspeedi-sleeve and a new seal –still leaked. It was at this point that I started looking at the possibility thatexcessive play at the sprocket cover where the shift shaft passed through was aproblem. So I bored the hole on thecover and made a bushing which eliminated the play and also made the shiftingmuch crisper. To finally (so I thought…)address the issue of the shift shaft seal, I made my own seal from brass with atight clearance for the shift shaft, two o-rings on the ID and two o-rings onthe OD. I figured that I had it beat nowfor sure. The leak persisted. As a final measure I removed the brass sealand lathered it up with RTV thinking now that perhaps there was a crack in thatarea that I could not see. It is still leaking–a good deal by most standards.
So the MC is sitting in my garage with one wheel in thegrave. Most of my cohorts chide me fornot writing this old thing off two months ago and typically I don’t letsomething like an oil leak defeat me. But the above stated again –I like it andit is my only MC.
Has anyone ever experienced a leak like this in thatarea? Am I missing something? Or is it just time to let it go and findsomething else?
Thanks!
I will apologize in advance for this long post –I’ve been struggling with thisproblem for 3 months…
Firstly,I've been using this site to help with variousproblems on my 1980 GS550 for about 6 years -Thanks! Until now I havenever needed to post a question (because I’ve found everything else) but thismight be the sort of rabbit hole that causes me to abandon my Low dollar wonderbike experiment. I am no stranger to tackling unusual problems; oilleaking up hill, compression limited spark plugs, etc. on my othervehicles but this crazy leak has me at the end. I've put over 30k mileson this MC since I paid $175 for it 6 years ago and thought then that I'd throwit away when something like this happened. But I've come to like it toomuch and have modified it to be exactly how I want it. It also runs fantastic.
The problem:
Late last season it developed an oil leak and gotprogressively worse –to the point where it was leaking over a pint every 100 miles. It was all over the chain, tire and the frontsprocket cover. Based on the age of theMC and the location of the leak I assumed shifter seal but ordered all 4 sealsfor that area (clutch rod, output shaft x2, and the shifter seal). Upon disassembly the grime was so bad that Icould not really tell where the oil was coming from but saw sings of all theseals leaking so figuring to replace them all seemed like a good call.
In April I replaced them all. The leak was not fixed. With everything cleaned I could see after ashort ride that oil was pooling up on the small ledge at the bottom of thetransmission case and seemed to originate from that shift seal, then drippeddown along the side of the oil pan and back onto everything else. Thinking at this point that perhaps there wasan issue with the seal surface on the shift shaft, I replaced the Suzukisupplied seal with an over-the-counter seal that was 8mm tall instead of12. Another test ride and it stillleaked –still looking like that shift seal. I checked the areas where the other seals were replaced and I could notsee any conclusive evidence that they were contributing to this problem. The next fix attempt was to use aspeedi-sleeve and a new seal –still leaked. It was at this point that I started looking at the possibility thatexcessive play at the sprocket cover where the shift shaft passed through was aproblem. So I bored the hole on thecover and made a bushing which eliminated the play and also made the shiftingmuch crisper. To finally (so I thought…)address the issue of the shift shaft seal, I made my own seal from brass with atight clearance for the shift shaft, two o-rings on the ID and two o-rings onthe OD. I figured that I had it beat nowfor sure. The leak persisted. As a final measure I removed the brass sealand lathered it up with RTV thinking now that perhaps there was a crack in thatarea that I could not see. It is still leaking–a good deal by most standards.
So the MC is sitting in my garage with one wheel in thegrave. Most of my cohorts chide me fornot writing this old thing off two months ago and typically I don’t letsomething like an oil leak defeat me. But the above stated again –I like it andit is my only MC.
Has anyone ever experienced a leak like this in thatarea? Am I missing something? Or is it just time to let it go and findsomething else?
Thanks!
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