Borths Blog: A little oil leak.

About a week ago, I noticed that my motorcycle had an oil leak between the cooling fins on the engine block. I cleaned off the oil, rode the bike, and saw new oil in the same place. A few days later, my pants leg had a fine spray of oil on it. I examined the bike and realized that the oil was coming from a leaking head gasket. Hey, it's a $20 part; how hard can it be to fix?

I pulled the seat and frame covers off, and I removed the fuel tank. This I've done before, and it went smoothly. Then I had to pull the air box and carburetor out. I drained the fuel from the carb float bowls, and nothing came out of my right carburetor. So now I have to disassemble and clean my carbs. I just set them aside in a plastic bag to keep them clean.

Next I removed the head cover to gain access to the cam shafts. I rotated the crankshaft with a 19 mm wrench to line up the markings on the crankshaft with the pickups. This lined up the camshafts so that I could position them correctly when I reinstalled them.

Now, with everything off the top of my engine, it was time to remove the cylinder head so that I could replace the head gasket. Btw- Every gasket I've pulled off the bike so far has needed to be replaced. All of the gaskets were tearing or brittle. In fact, I only got a few off of their respective seals without destroying them. The rest stuck and tore. A this point in the repair, I've racked up around $90 worth of gaskets that need to be replaced as a result of my teardown.

I tried to remove the cylinder head from the engine, but it just wasn't budging. I gave the engine block a few taps with a 16 oz. rubber mallet, and then pulled on the head again. I lifted the head up, bringing the entire engine block with it! The oil that had leaked out had carbonized and glued my cylinder head to the block, allowing me to lift the entire engine block off the engine's lower end. I now had yet another gasket to replace (the cylinder gasket). I started with an oil leak, now I'm doing an engine rebuild. C'est la vie.

So now I have my bike apart with the engine block on my workbench, and the pistons sticking out of the lower end of the engine that's still in the bike. The good news is the pistons and cylinder walls look to be in great condition, and the gaskets I ordered on Monday morning are all here today. I've got to clean all the parts I've removed so that the new gaskets seat well, and I've got some carburetor maintenance to do, too. I've decided to replace the clutch cable while I'm in there (it was in the way; I removed it to get the engine block out), and we'll see what else happens while I've got the bike opened up. How hard can it be to replace a simple $20 part, anyway?

I had to remove the exhaust to get the head off.