Major oil leak

[Guest]

I have had a 2nd hand gs850 engine fitted and it runs well but have a major oil leak from the left hand side cover.
Guy in the bike shop said it is coming from a seal and the engine has to come out again to split the crank case.
Question: can this be fixed without removing the engine?
Getting quoted silly money from the garage

[JTGS850GL]

Which left side cover are we talking about? If it's the stator cover, then it's an easy job. If it's the secondary drive cover then it depends on where it's leaking from.

[Rab Sneddon]

Secondary drive cover, still not sure where from though, and can't get round to looking at it until next week. Only have the information the guy in the garage told me at the moment. never having removed the cover myself, are there seals in there?
If so and one is leaking, does the engine have to come out?
Many thanks for the info

[Grimly]

Secondary drive cover, still not sure where from though, and can't get round to looking at it until next week. Only have the information the guy in the garage told me at the moment. never having removed the cover myself, are there seals in there?
If so and one is leaking, does the engine have to come out?
Many thanks for the info

There's a seal between the drive casing and the main gearbox, but I had leaky one and never had an ounce of trouble with it, just made sure the engine oil was kept topped up. When that engine came apart later on, there was no wear or distress mark at all on the bevel gearing, despite having run for many many thousands of miles on engine oil. That internal oil seal supposedly does need the engine casings to be split, but I'm sure I've come across mention of someone doing it in-situ.
However, in your example, if the oil is coming out from the drive cover the only seals there are an O-ring under the drive carrier flange and a seal at the output shaft, both of which are easily fixed by removing the swinging arm, and pulling out the drive unit rearwards - and on the leftmost one, the same applies - it will pull out leftwards.

[Joe Garfield]

My bike has oil leaking from the gaskets in the oil drain/level ports and is making a mess near the bottom of the secondary drive cover. I don't know your situation but having someone say they need to take the bike to open the guts of the engine to fix a leak, and quoting a ton of money, scares me. I'd get a second opinion if you really don't want to tackle it yourself. If you do, there are a ton of resources and good people here to help. I don't have much experience with fixing bikes but am going to tear mine down to the crankcase to replace seals/gaskets and clean things up. I'm not opening the case though unless I absolutely have to. You can go to the online parts stores and look at parts diagrams, and download the repair manuals on this site to get an idea of what's inside.

[Rab Sneddon]

Thanks for the info, will get round to taking some pics in a few days, up to my eyes in work at the moment