mystery oil leak-pickup rotor cover

[nhowar02]

hello, first time poster here! I've had my 07 FZ6 for about 3 years now, put over 20k miles on her. first bike, its been a great bike!

so i have an issue with her. please bear with me, the most i do mechanically with my bike is oil and coolant changes.

i noticed i had some residual oil on the right side (while sitting on it) of the engine. i believe its the pickup rotor cover? so i washed the bike, went for a ride and isolated the leak. i eventually found the exact spot it was leaking from(as seen in the video) so i may just replace the gasket. here is the video of the leak, you can see it if you look closley.
https://youtu.be/2P3RI29ooSg

photos will be posted or attached








a couple things that were brought up to me. could it be a breather issue? too much oil?

has anyone removed this cover? can i do so without replacing the oil? and is replacing the gasket as simple as removing and replacing it? I'm going to go to a garage that has every tool that i would need(torque wrench, maybe someone who knows what they are doing )

sorry again if i sound like a noob idiot and thanks again for any help!

 

[ozgurakman]

a couple things that were brought up to me. could it be a breather issue? too much oil?

has anyone removed this cover? can i do so without replacing the oil? and is replacing the gasket as simple as removing and replacing it? I'm going to go to a garage that has every tool that i would need(torque wrench, maybe someone who knows what they are doing )

sorry again if i sound like a noob idiot and thanks again for any help!

hello and welcome to our great forum.

I popped up that cover a year ago for valve adjusting and cam chain changing.
You can change the seal of that cover or use temp. res. liquid gasket.

I don't think if crankcase breather is an issue. You can open that cover without changing oil, just make sure your bike is on SIDE stand. Also, you would use a torque wrench but if you know what you're doing it's not vital. But recommended for beginners. Good luck

it'll look like this when that cover popped up:
https://flic.kr/p/v7dnTg

note: in this photo, timing chain and timing washer were removed from engine.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

I've had that same gasket on another bike (KLR 250) fail like yours. It happened to fail as I took the bike to red line several times racing a HD..(I lost BTW)

You simply need a new side gasket. Torque to spec's, criss cross pattern..

As noted above, you don't have to drain the oil. Just remove the side cover(bike on the side stand). Very, very straight forward. Make sure all the surfaces are super clean.

You don't need sealer on the new gasket but do need some sealer where the PU sensor is (rubber seal).

I swapped my entire side cover (my 07 FZ) (due to damage from the PO) in maybe 1/2 an hour..

If you can change the oil, you can swap that gasket out..

And just make sure your oil is NOT over filled, that's bad for any engine...

 

[nhowar02]

Awesome guys. Thanks for the help! Seems like I'm just going to double check the oil level and Pop that sucker off.

One last thing... Would it matter if the engine was warm?

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Awesome guys. Thanks for the help! Seems like I'm just going to double check the oil level and Pop that sucker off.

One last thing... Would it matter if the engine was warm?

Nope...

But I'd probably just do it at room temp and let any oil slung onto the inside of the cover drain off.

Just not quite as messy..