oil leak near oil pressure switch

[bjrehill]

What a great spring. I have a very small leak that seems to be coming from the housing for the oil pressure switch on my 1980 GS 850 GL. At least that is where it seems to be coming from. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what to look for. Is it the O ring? Housing? Switch?

Should oil be able to come out of this housing at all?

It's a very small leak but is annoying. My air filter cover on the right side gets a thin coating of oil after a couple days of riding. So I want to clear it up. Thanks in advance.

Basil

[chuckycheese]

Simple

I don't think you have much of a problem. It's probably from the rubber "O" ring from the filter housing. Or, maybe the acorn nuts aren't uniformly tight. It's easy to check out and fix but make certain you don't overtighten the cover; with a decent "O" ring, it simply isn't necessary to make it very tight.

One other possibility is that it could be leaking from the oil plug sensor unit. Also, an easy fix! (but I doubt that's where it's leaking). Good luck!

[lhanscom]

Since it sounds like it's been going on for a bit, make sure you clean the area before you take the unit off. That spot is where all your oil flows before going thru the engine, so dirt in there is especially bad. It should be a pretty easy fix though, it's probably just a bad o-ring.

[bwringer]

The oil pressure switch o-ring doesn't leak very often, although it's possible. Oil in that area is far more likely to be coming from the cam chain tensioner, which sits directly above the oil pressure switch.

Either way, it's fairly simple and very inexpensive to fix.

Here's the cam chain tensioner seal info:

http://bwringer.com/gs/camchaintens.html

[chuckycheese]

WOW

WOW!! Your website is absolutely AWESOME! Thanks!