Base gasket leak

[Guest]

I'm at close to 1100 miles after doing a top end rebuild and my 1980 gs850l has developed a bit of a base gasket leak. I noticed it while riding the other day-just seeping but enough to spray on the engine covers and my boot. Today I torqued the cylinder head nuts to spec (also did this after 600 miles) but I started it up and once it warmed up I could see it was seeping out around the right hand back corner where the cylinder jug mates with the crankcase. When I did the top end rebuild, I replaced base gasket and head gasket along with the odd shaped orings inside with all OEM. So, I'm guessing I have to bite the bullet and pull the top end again, replacing base and head gaskets?

[Brendan W]

Interesting. The usual explanation for a leak is blame it on not using oem.
Next up people are going to think you didn't do it right.
I would be very interested to see what that right corner o-ring looks like if and when you go back in there.
I did mine few years back with the cheapest set I could find, NE brand, and so far so good.
I sprayed the base gasket with Al paint and stuck the o-rings down with yamabond or similar.
The old rings had taken a kink and were not sitting on their seal surface if you get my drift.
There is a lot of good experience here vouching for oem with good reason - personal experience.
One off events make bad statistics but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[fixmybrokecomputer]

A few years ago, I had an independent shop (Action Cycle in Evansville, Indiana) pull the top end on my GS1100GK because of a blown head gasket. The first time it made it through a few tanks of gas before the base gasket started leaking. I had provided them a full Athena gasket set. They blamed the gaskets. I paid for them to try again with Suzuki gaskets. I picked the bike up and was riding home when the base gasket started leaking badly before I even got 40 mi down the road. Took it back. The next excuse was that something must be warped. I said if that was the case, it only meant that they didn't check for that while they had it apart. They finally quit asking for money and did it a third time. It was Sept or Oct by that time so not lots of time to ride due to cold weather coming. I rode it as much as possible through the winter and by the middle of Feb, the base gasket was leaking again. Gave up even talking to them and finally decided to sue them. I didn't get what I sued for, but I did settle for $550. I just needed to make the point that their crappy work wasn't just gonna be forgiven. Some time went by and I bought a Vesrah gasket set for $50 on ebay and decided I couldn't mess up any worse than they did so I tore into it one weekend. When I pulled the cylinders, I discovered their mistake. I guess they laid the base gasket on the crankcase first and then tried to slide the cylinders down. When they did that the base gasket shifted and wasn't laying flat on the bottom of the cylinders on one side. The edge of the gasket was stopped by the edge of the cylinders, keeping it from laying flat and creating a gap for oil to get out. If it looks like you've got too much gasket sticking out between the crankcase and the cylinders, on one side, then that might be the issue in your case. If I dig, I think I have a pic of what I found when the cylinders were removed. My method was to get a helper and we both held the gasket against the bottom of the cylinders when sliding them down instead of just laying the gasket on the crankcase. I didn't use any sealer on any of the gaskets except on the rubber plugs on the end of the cams. This may or may not be your problem, but it sure was in my case. Hope that helps.

[fixmybrokecomputer]

Here's the pic of my base gasket trouble.

GS1100GK Base Gasket.jpg

I should add that I repaired the shops' mistake 3 years ago and everything is still great......and let's not leave out the fact that they had the bike for 9 months the first time! I don't have nearly that much patience these days.

[Scooter]

I've had the o rings fail on my 850 going on the third replacement now. Last year I laid a bead of 3bond on the seal ledge and sat the rings on top and waited for 24 hours before I assembled. End of last season it started to leak again. When I took it apart a couple of weeks ago, both o rings were deformed like a letter "B". Wish I knew how to keep this from happening again. Any thoughts?

[Nessism]

I've had the o rings fail on my 850 going on the third replacement now. Last year I laid a bead of 3bond on the seal ledge and sat the rings on top and waited for 24 hours before I assembled. End of last season it started to leak again. When I took it apart a couple of weeks ago, both o rings were deformed like a letter "B". Wish I knew how to keep this from happening again. Any thoughts?

Did you use OEM Suzuki gaskets and O-rings? Did you coat the gaskets/seals with anything before install? Any oil additives like Seafoam or similar?