Seattle Motorcycle Maintenance

So I made it back from PDX and my bike was clicking a little for the last 45 miles or so, but luckily the exhaust had just come a little loose. Still, I needed to adjust the valves – it’s been a while, although I only ride this thing for a couple weeks a year. But one of the tappet adjustment covers was stripped.

I tried different wrenches and vice grips, and finally decided to get a chisel and try to work a notch into it so I could get it to turn. The cover is really soft metal, however, and every time I would work a small notch into it and try to then get something into the notch to get it to turn, the notch would just get bigger. Then a small chunk came off. I thought I was in deep shit, until I looked at it and realized that the rubber o-ring would keep any chunks of metal out of the valves if I was careful. So I took the chisel and worked away the part of the cover around the o-ring, and the thing came right off.

 A quick adjustment to the valves – only 2 were off much – and I was done.

Now for that pesky oil leak… My bike has been dripping oil onto the shift lever for the past 7-8 years. When you ride it for a few weeks out of the year, that shit is easy to ignore, but it had gotten worse recently (especially since I overfilled the oil), and I Decided to do something about it. It’s not the shaft seal for the shifter (at least that’s not the main problem, if it is, indeed, leaking there). Rather, the sturdy o-ring chain that I installed about 15 years ago had slowly worn away a small divot on the inside of the case, under the chain cover. The only way to stop the leak would be some kind of epoxy, like JB Weld, and then replacing the chain. I decided that I would try the most low-budget solution, since even though the chain is 15 years old, it’s still working just fine. I opened up the chain cover, took the rear wheel off so the chain would have some slack, and undid the primary sprocket. Since I don’t have a chain splitter up here, I just pushed it back and out of the way. This is what the small leak looks like:

I dabbed on the JB weld, and then to try to put some distance between the chain and where it rubbed, I threw on a small washer. Then I let it sit overnight.

Postcript: Looked clean the next morning, made a ride into Georgetown and there were no drips, but came back to the bike and noticed a small spot. Damn. Maybe chain replacement is in my future – or I’ll just keep ignoring it? Or... it might just be that I had two leaks and the shifter shaft seal is bad too. This warrants investigation... or I might ignore it for another 10 years.