Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Case of the Mysterious Oil Leak

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a small puddle under my K75.

The puddle was about the size of my fist.

It looked like oil. It felt like oil.

The mysterious part was the location of this puddle.

It was under my left hard case.

I wiped it up with a shop towel. I looked directly above the puddle and wondered why my hard case was leaking oil.

Sure enough the underside of the bag was coated in oil.

I wiped the the oil off the bag.

I looked forward of the bag, thinking maybe it was being sprayed from the front.

All was clean.

I opened the bag.

All was dry.

I threw the oily rag away, and not feeling like dealing with a problem, I decided to forgot about the whole thing.

I subsequently saw the puddle a few days later. I continued watchful waiting and ignored it some more.

More ignoring this weekend as I took the GT for a ride.

Yesterday, I decide to pull the bikes out of the garage to wash them.

By now I've completely forgotten about the oil leak.

As I pull the left bag off the K75, I put my hand underneath to pull it off. It is coated in oil.

Hmmm, seems it's time to trouble shoot the case of the mysterious oil leak.

The back of the bag is coated with oil.

The rail that holds the bag is coated with oil.

Did I mention that this is clean oil?

Hmmmm, the oil is coming from above.

Like maybe....the tail fin

Where a spare quart of oil has been tossing around for the last year?

I open the tail fin...things are very...moist.

The cover of spare quart, which had been opened at some time, came loose, and filled the tail fin, and found some hole to slowly drain out.

I pulled everything out. Cleaned what I could, threw out the rest.

Put the spare quart into a zip lock bag

And finished cleaning the bike.

Another mechanical mystery solved.

5 comments:

Osman said...

Oh to be so lucky.

My garage is littered with K75 parts at the moment. I had to pull out everything after the engine to fix the bike and am now awaiting parts.

As Tom Petty once said, the waiting is the hardest part.

Ronman said...

I was wondering if the oil gremlins were spraying it under the bag. Glad you figured that one out ma'am.

Ronman

Demonio Pellegrino said...

Hi there...I cry every time I read of other motoryclysts having a proper garage...when I have to do my attempts at repairing I end up messing up the whole yard...

By the way, I discovered your blog by accident, and I added your link to my blog Mototourism (http://mototourism.blogspot.com).

I am not asking you to do the same, absolutely. This is just a FYI. I find your blog very well written and very entertaining.

As for the oil...at least you found out what happened!

Jammaw said...

Love your site! My son was living in Gilmanton, NH a couple of years ago. I went up to visit the first week of October and we rented bikes and rode for 4 days. What a beautiful part of the country.

irondad said...

I see you solved the mystery. I was going to suggest looking at your friends to see who had a sly smirk on their face!