An Oil Leak

An oil leak. My 07 Classic has got a frackin' oil leak with only about 32K miles on it with about 80-90% of that being highway touring miles. Old Harleys, Indians, Triumphs and BSAs have oil leaks and "mark their spots". New Harleys don't even get oil leaks but apparently the Brits still can't build a bike that doesn't leak oil even in this day and age of modern machinery and manufacturing methods. Hell the new Russian Urals don't even leak oil. WTF? The leak appears to coming from between the front engine cover and the engine block and this looks like one hell of procedure to replace that gasket. This I don't need.

Mike, by front engine cover do you mean the clutch cover? If so its about a 4 hour job if your also replacing the clutch. once you have done it you can easily knock an hour off that time. I have it down to two hours with pulling the blower. Its not as bad as it looks. I never heard of one leaking you should make sure its not the valve cover gasket in front. My bet is when its taken in for Valve clearance checks they did not get the gasket on right. How high on the front is it?

The bike is out in the shop and I don't have the tech manual in front of me so I don't know what the nomenclature of the plate, or cover, that is bolted to the front left side of the engine behind the water pump. The leak is not a severe one but it is a leak all the same, enough to deposit about a 2-3 inch drip of oil under the front of the engine after riding. It appears to be leaking at the gasket around the bottom of plate between it and the engine block. The clutch lever penetrates the plate at the top left and the chrome "derby" cover bolts up to it.

This is just frustrating and not what I expected. Hell, I see Victorys with a 100K on them running around town, leak free. You'd think that Triumph could get a handle on quality control after all these years.

Yup. My Bonnie's brake reservoir has started to weep;(. So not happy! I'm gonna go with a R3 reservoir soon. It's a direct replacement with better performance and no weeping.

Mike, if your talking about the chrome cover, it is clutch cover outer it does not penetrate the clutch cover IMO its there as a stiffener of the clutch where the lifter shaft goes thru the acruall clutch cover and vibration dampner for the cover. If the leak is on that side it could be a couple things. one being the O-ring on the water pump. or even the clutch cover gasket. If the bike has had the valves adjusted the O-ring on the pump and the clutch cover gasket might have been damaged when it got put back together. It also could be to save you money someone decided to try to re-use the cover. Heck it could even be the oil filter. or the insection cover over the crank. Like you said its out in your shop and hard for me to see It also could be the head gasket of valve cover or vent tube coming from the oil tank, but I just can not tell. Sory it looks as if I am no help to you.

Where? With the radiator in front of most of the stuff below; hard to see if the leak would be coming from the front part of the valve cover above. Take off all of the radiator surrounds (easy) cleans the engine with degreaser; hose it and dry it. Check for source of leak. Then fix it.

sound advice Will, I first suspected Valve cover leak. You are right about the visability. Hell it could be some of the clutch cover bolts did not get torqued down completley as there are a bunch of them little suckers. If the valve shims had to be changed out the cams would have to be lifted which means the cover should have came off. So gasket on that could be suspect. Which would not be Triumphs fault it would fall on the mechanic. You can lift the cams without pulling the cover I would bet there would be a better then 90% change the valve spring pressure would make the cam chain jump a tooth on the crank resulting in a bike that seems to run good but just lost 15 to 20 HP due to the valve event being out of time. Ask Triumph Phill the shop that did his screwed the timing up at least twice. The shim clearnce can be checked without pulling the clutch cover but if it has to be changed it would have to come off. Likewise re-using the old cam cover gasket or a new one that is not installed right could develop a leak that will eventually find its way to the bottom of the engin via easiest route. I can admit that I had a cam gasket shift and squeeze out on mine along the throttle body side which at first I though I blew the head gasket and was not sure until I got stuff out of the way for better vision. Hell I did not even have to replace it just put in on right and leak was gone. I could not blame Triumph on that one for sure. If the leak was their fault it would have developed alot faster the 30,000 miles of riding.
Mike has anyone been in your engine sense it was put together in the UK at Triumph ?

This going to be a "stupid" question? Have you checked to make sure the cover is snug and something hasn't loosened up? I hate oil leaks as much as the next guy but I usually start checking bolts first. Mine came back from the dealer with 3 bolts finger tight and a leak. Snugged em up and no more leak. Dealers like everyone else are in too much of a hurry any more.

Pardon my frustration gentleman and thanks for the insights. With all of the projects I have going on right now I was just not ready for this. Whether it is sloppy American service workmanship or poor British manufacturing, I am not a happy camper right now. I've had the shrouds off to have them painted so will get to the inspection this weekend.

Warp, in answer to your question, yes. It needed a valve shim at the 30K service and it was done by one of the older dealerships around here. While inspecting it last night I also noticed that one of the radiator hoses, which I believe is on the output side of the water pump, did not have the cover spring pulled all of the way down so it now has a big bulge in it. The radiator coolant was changed as part of the service so I suspect that the mechanic had to pull this hose to fully drain the system, failing to reinstall it properly. This is starting to look like a service and not a manufacturing issue.

And Hooter, it is not a dumb question but no I have not touched it yet, only inspecting it. I'll know soon.

Navigator said:

Pardon my frustration gentleman and thanks for the insights. With all of the projects I have going on right now I was just not ready for this. Whether it is sloppy American service workmanship or poor British manufacturing, I am not a happy camper right now. I've had the shrouds off to have them painted so will get to the inspection this weekend.

Warp, in answer to your question, yes. It needed a valve shim at the 30K service and it was done by one of the older dealerships around here. While inspecting it last night I also noticed that one of the radiator hoses, which I believe is on the output side of the water pump, did not have the cover spring pulled all of the way down so it now has a big bulge in it. The radiator coolant was changed as part of the service so I suspect that the mechanic had to pull this hose to fully drain the system, failing to reinstall it properly. This is starting to look like a service and not a manufacturing issue.

And Hooter, it is not a dumb question but no I have not touched it yet, only inspecting it. I'll know soon.

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Mike, I believe that the coil spring you mentioned is more for protection; than reinforcement of the radiator hose. But I may be wrong.

Mine intially was delivered at time of purchase without a coil spring.