What's leaking?

[the_journeyman]

'85 GS1150ESF, 16,XXX miles. Picked up this summer, runs great.

However, oil is finding its way to the front of the engine. Covering most of the cylinder block with enough oil to keep it wet. Occasionally drips a little drop or two from the cooling fins from all that's accumulated while riding. Never drips when just sitting in the garage. It seems there is a thicker coating of oil toward the right side (as looking from the front of bike).

Head gasket is dry, base gasket is dry. Where is my oil coming from? It also appears what I'm assuming is part of the cam chain area in the front is dry too.

Thanks!

[Nessism]

Head gasket is dry, base gasket is dry. Where is my oil coming from? It also appears what I'm assuming is part of the cam chain area in the front is dry too.

Thanks!

Standard process is to clean the engine with gunk spray cleaner, or similar, and run the engine while carefully watching the area for leaks. Pay particular attention to the tach drive and cam cover.

[the_journeyman]

I'll give that a shot and see what comes up where. I'll pick up some Gunk tonight or tomorrow and see ~

JM

[Mark whiz]

After you clean and dry the engine, you might want to squirt a little baby powder around suspect spots before you fire it up - that'll give you a quick indication of where the leak is starting from.

[t3rmin]

I'd say check the tach sender, but you've got an electronic tach, right?

If it's on the left (as sitting on the bike), it could be the stator gasket and wind is blowing it around.

But yeah, follow Nessism's advice. Clean 'er up and get a proper look.

[Eric Peterson]

For what it's worth, that's just the problem I'm dealing with now with my '82 750TZ (same rough location for the oil too). I'd highly recommend the clean then baby-powder (or athlete's foot spray used in some of the GS posts) move--worked great for me. All this showed me a small leak in the cam gasket near cylinder 2--I'm scraping, cleaning, and getting ready to replace it in the next couple of days.
A lot of posts here suggest doing the full pull while in there, if that's the kind of problem you end up having--valve clearances, carb sync, etc
Good luck!!

[Carter Turk]

You might check the 10 hex bolts holding the cam cover on, 8 of which have a rubber washer underneath. One of the camshaft towers holding the hex bolt stripped out on my bike allowing oil to weep through rubber washer and onto the front and side of my engine. After I helicoiled the cam tower the leak went away.

Also if someone was in there adjusting valves they may have failed to seat the rubber cam cover gasket in its proper grrove.

[focus frenzy]

cam chain tensioner leaking.
the oil runs down through the fins between 2&3 and comes out the front, very messy.

[the_journeyman]

cam chain tensioner leaking.
the oil runs down through the fins between 2&3 and comes out the front, very messy.

This sounds like what I'm experiencing, so I'll clean it up good for a proper look and see what I find. Thanks for the input!

JM