oil leak

[Anonymous]

my freinds has a 82 gs 650L that i was thinking of buying off him. the problem is that it has a oil leak. it leaks were the cylinder meets the bottem end its dosent leak that bad unless you take it on the highway. is this a huge concern to were the hole gasket could blow out and it just starts pouring oil out. and how hard would it be to fix/expensive. thanks for any help

[chuckycheese]

No

I had that same problem on a Harley once (what a surprise! ). I don't think there's any chance that anything catastrophic will happen but, from my experience, it will annoy you more and more as time goes by...and, yes, it would be quite expensive to fix unless you did it yourself.

Also....I think regardless of the reason the leak started, (loose bolts, bad gasket, etc.) nothing you do will fix it (short of replacing the gasket).

[Jethro]

Whatever you do, don't think that simply overtorquing the bolts will stop the leak. I found out the hard way- snapperoo!

Doing the base gasket sucks only becasue it's a shame to not have the cyls honed and new rings installed when you have the barrels off.

[Anonymous]

My advice just fix it yourself. I had no experience with engines or bikes before i got mine. I bought a Clymers manual for it and rebuilt the head myself without a problem.

Enough cannot be said about a good Clymers manual

FYI

I have a fun oil leak too...
My bike's clutch rod seal leaks like a seive when the oil gets warmed up. I got the part for $2, then a quote for the job at over $400. Needless to say I will be doing this myself for much cheaper, although the gasket/seal kit for the engine is about $130. Worth it in the end

Good luck

[chuckycheese]

Clutch

Hey Hipster, that's not too bad of a job! I replaced my clutch rod seal on another bike and it was pretty easy. Just be careful putting it in. Make sure you don't damage it and that you get it in perfectly straight...and you'll be "good to go"

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I've been putting it off for a while. The leak is getting pretty bad. Did you have to remove the whole transmission to replace the seal?

[chuckycheese]

No

No, not at all. With the Yamaha, I just needed to remove the left side case which exposed the sproket/countershaft and the clutch push rod seal. I've never done it on my Suzuki but I would think it would be on the right side. It may not be as easy to get to, but once you find out where it is, I would think putting in the new one would be about the same process.

I'm sorry I can't give you better information....I looked in my Clymer's book but it isn't even mentioned. I'm sure one of the other guys will be able to steer you in the right direction. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

That's good to hear!

Well tomorrow morning I am waking up and pulling the engine on my '80 with 6k miles on it. Want to take the cam cover off for inspection and among other things finish the carb rebuild. The damn screws holding the slide in are stuck, should be interesting to solve.

Later on