Oil pan bolts

[Guest]

Just a real quick one. Noticed a very tiny oil leak tonight under my 82 GS850L. Nothing urgent; only a drop. Just there's a bunch of bolts to tighten up the oil pan (all 10mm-all snug OK), and there's two by the exhaust manifold which have these funky rubber washers between the bolt heads and the pan surface. One of these washers mostly disintegrated I guess over time. Before it gets worse, do I need to replace this rubber washer with a similar one, or will just tightening the bolt do? By the way, the bolt is about an inch and a half or so long, and is tapered or pointed at the threaded end. Seems there might be a small metal sleeve in the middle of the washer, but hard to see upside down in such a small space.
Thanks guys. Larry. And have a nice Labor Day for those of you who have off from work....

[bwringer]

The microfiche for the oil pan shows that only ordinary bolts are used on the perimeter of the oil pan, so you can tighten these normally.

However, the muffler fiche shows two bolts with rubber bushings and sleeves used to mount the crossover, which is under the oil pan. I don't know if these thread into the oil pan or the frame on the GL, but that's probably the two bolts you're talking about.

Here's a good fiche site with good prices. Go take a look and see how it compares to what you have. (My 83 850G has a different exhaust setup than the GL, so I can't just go out and look.)

http://flatoutmotorcycles.com

[Jackrp]

Just a real quick one. Noticed a very tiny oil leak tonight under my 82 GS850L. Nothing urgent; only a drop. Just there's a bunch of bolts to tighten up the oil pan (all 10mm-all snug OK), and there's two by the exhaust manifold which have these funky rubber washers between the bolt heads and the pan surface. One of these washers mostly disintegrated I guess over time. Before it gets worse, do I need to replace this rubber washer with a similar one, or will just tightening the bolt do? By the way, the bolt is about an inch and a half or so long, and is tapered or pointed at the threaded end. Seems there might be a small metal sleeve in the middle of the washer, but hard to see upside down in such a small space.
Thanks guys. Larry. And have a nice Labor Day for those of you who have off from work....

The rubber washers for the exhaust crossover are vibration isolators, it wouldn't hurt to replace them as you could pick up a noise from the crossover vibrating against the oil pan, these exhaust crossover bolts and rubber will have NO effect on any lind of oil leak, as the first answerer said, perimiter bolts on pan, seal in the oil.

[Rocketman]

Thanks very much for both your answers, and upon further inspection I now see. Each bolt actually looks like it has a double rubber washer, and one of the two on just one bolt is now gone. But so long as these don't actually snug up the oil pan, I'm much more relieved and will replace the missing washer/isolator later. Dripping was most likely from something else, but again not significant. Thanks again for the help guys, and enjpy what's left of the weekend. Remnants of Hurrican Ernie pretty much totally wasted today, and tomorrow morning's supposed to still be wet. But there's hope for Sunday afternoon & Monday.