To cure the high-temp paint, you need to do it in three steps.
- Run it for 10 minutes, turn it off and let cool for 20.
- Run it for 20 minutes, turn it off and let cool for 20.
- Run it for 30 minutes and you’re done.
So – I fired it up, and was SOOOO pleased to hear the thing rumbling away in the drive. When I turned it off after the first run, I noticed some drips of oil on the ground. I hadn’t given the engine any kind of degreasing on the exterior since painting, and I figured some of that was just old oil that had collected on the lower surfaces heating and dripping off.
When I fired it up for the second 20-minute version, though, a terrifying sight was beheld. At first I figured it was just the exhaust wrap curing, I was told to expect this, and indeed, as the pipe heated up the smoke went from the top of the header pipe and slowly moved down towards the muffler. But then I notice it was still smoking pretty heavily from the top:
Holy shit – it was hemorrhaging oil! I was a little beside myself. I was prepared for a little leakage I’d need to track down, but NOTHING like this.
I dropped some cardboard underneath the thing and let it sit overnight. When I came out in the morn, I was greeted with this:
I started trying to assess the problem, and it was pretty disheartening. There was friggin’ oil -everywhere-.
It was pretty disheartening. From where the leak was happening at first I thought I was going to have to pull the head cover and replace that oil plug for a THIRD time, or perhaps my application of the gasket compound had failed. I was baffled ’cause I had been sooo careful.
The more I thought about it, the more worried I got that it was going to be something major, and began contemplating the need to actually pull the engine to -really- get in there and figure it out.
Before resigning myself to that nightmare, I prepared to at least pull the head covers/cap one more time and see what could be seen. After removing two bolts I noticed something odd. None of them were wet. In fact, other than the oil you can see in that final photo above, the head cap was dry. I checked around the rocker arm covers to see if those gaskets had failed – and they too were dry. Further investigation into the opening next to the header pipe where that infamous oil plug resided was also bone dry. So it wasn’t the plug failing again.
So where the hell was the oil coming from???
I noticed one of the bolts – one of the long ones on the back right side of the engine, though, WAS wet. I put the wrench on it to see if I could tighten it down and with luck have it be just that. No good, as I realized the bolt was stripped. I pulled it out and a little bit of oil was welling up under it.
Further investigation revealed that this was one of a couple bolts that actually runs through the oil galley and needs a sealing washer. You can see there is still one, but they don’t tend to react too well to reuse. I happened to have a packet of sealing washers I needed for the petcock bolts, so that was covered. The problem, of course, was the stripped bolt.
I pulled it out and found that the bolt wasn’t the problem. As with one of the other head cover bolts, in fact the other long one at the front of the same side of the engine, the threads INSIDE the engine were stripped. For shorter bolts, the general plan of fixing such things is to bore out the hole a tiny bit and install some helicoils, or new steel thread inserts. For these 170mm long bolts that just isn’t going to work. So I ordered a length of M6 threaded rod, cut it to length and once again turned a bolt hole into a stud with a couple locking cap nuts and a little red thread lock. Dropping the new copper sealing washer in place, I used the two nuts on the top to bolt the new stud in as deep as I could while tapping on it oh-so-gently with a framing hammer as I turned to try and get it as deep as possible.
Now that it was (hopefully) fixed, I crossed my fingers and fired it up once more to perform the final 30 minute curing of the high-temp paint on the fins.
After 30 minutes of running, there were now only three little spots of oil on the cardboard…this was looking promising.
In the second photo you see three drops of oil with sharpie maker around them. Those happened during the final 30 minute cure, so I circled them, parked the bike and let it sit overnight. When I came back out, THERE WERE NO NEW SPOTS!!!
Holy cats – that one stripped bolt and failed sealing gasket were the only culprits in that horrific oil carnage! MAN what a relief. Huge lesson learned. Don’t panic until you -know- it’s a major problem, and a little issue can look like a massive one sometimes.
Ok. now it’s literally down to the last item.
The seat itself.