Blew out clutch seal 1000 miles from home

[mrhedges]

I thought I'd write a little update. I made it home, it is leaking from the cam chain tensioner. I kept it under 65mph most of the way and that seemed to reduced the amount (or atleast reduce the amount on my legs), got to explore some neat backroads. I found the excellent how to on Basecliff's page. Are there other gaskets and seals I should think to replace as a preventative measure? The head gasket, valve gasket and base gasket are new but most if not all the other ones are probably original.

I'm going to write a post specific about my experiences but I have one other fairly minor issue and one more serious one. Towards the end of the trip I found that when downshifting and engine braking the bike would sometimes die. It always happened after the bike had warmed up and it wasn't everytime, it seemed just random. It happened when the bike was in low RPMs often when pulling into a gas station but sometimes coming up to a redlight. It never died when engine braking to lower speed just when I was coming to a stop. It always started up right away. Is this electrical? The bike (when warmed up) happily idles at 1,200 so it doesn't seem to be a carb issue or a idle issue. Is this normal? am I doing something wrong?

The last night I spent in a secluded campground in St Francis National Forest, AR (Lone pine campground, really cool spot) I set up the tent, make dinner, drink some beers, think about starting a campfire but it starts raining so I hid out in my tent. It rains pretty steady until 8am. I pack my stuff up go to start the bike and starts right away with choke, I push in the choke just a bit and the bike dies. This is strange, then I try to restart, No luck. Worried I turn it off wait a sec turn it on with full choke and she fires right up. I look back and both exhausts have white smoke. Then after a couple minutes it was coming just out of the right exhaust (kick stand side). The rest of the day the bike ran normal and I got home this evening. Are the bad seals letting rain in?

[Downs]

Check your airbox drain for oil. It's also possible a bunch of water got down the exhaust during the rain.

[49er]

Inside the airbox, just beneath the engine breather pipe, there is a narrow tract. It runs across the top of the box and can get completely blocked with rust. When this occurs, the crankcase pressurises causing all those oil leaks. I had the same problem a while back. I used a 1.6mm tig welding wire to clear the tract out. It hasn't reoccurred since. Check yours out.