Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech oil leak or oil fountain you make the call

So, while working on removing and installing the downpipe i disconnected the oil lines on my 2007 america. After reconnecting and getting the downpipes reconnected i started her up. she runs pretty good except now oil is gushing out of the line right where it bolts into the motor. How do i fix this?
I swear everytime i try to do something to the bike i break something else. The money i save on labor is getting spent on tools and parts to fix my mess ups.

Well first of all, one leak, you got the rest of it right, so find an exploded view diagram on Bike Bandit, or from your manual, take the leaker apart and figure out what piece you left out or assembled wrong. BTW, those fittings have torque specs too and you can trash them if you go too tight. As long as you do not keep on making the same mistakes, you will be fine and have a tool collection to utilize the rest of your life to boot.

Never had those off my bike yet but if they have crush washers on them you should renew those just to eliminate that as a cause.

ordered washers off bike bandit now to find a inexpensive torque wrench

that'll take two weeks. If the washers are copper, anneal them.

To expand on that: this process is performed by substantially heating the material (generally until glowing) for a while and allowing it to cool. Unlike ferrous metals—which must be cooled slowly to anneal—copper, silver[1] and brass can be cooled slowly in air or quickly by quenching in water. In this fashion the metal is softened and prepared for further work such as
shaping, stamping, or forming.

Isn't wiki handy?

so i went to advance and got a torque wrench set it to 260 inch lbs which was close to 30NM. and got some crush washers all it seems like i did was ruin the banjo bolt because i crused the washer to the bolt and it still leaks. im gonna try heating the brass bolts up on the stove then quenching them. what will it hurt?

so how do i get the bad washer off the banjo bolt or should i just start over and wait for the parts from bike bandit. anybody got a faster source?

You didn't weld it on, just pry it off, you mentioned Brass bolts, I wouldn't soften any bolts, just the washer. The original one that's buggered would be a good choice to rehab. We know that is the right alloy, anyway. I bought a multiple crush washer set at Harbour Freight awhile back and they came so hard as is from the Chinese factory, they wouldn't seal at all. The point is, you should not have to tighten it excessively for a good lasting seal. When tightening oil lines, it is better to err on the loose side, you can always go tighter, but once you over mash things up, then you have to be creative or go shopping.

i said bolts but meant washers. didnt work im guessing the stove didnt get hot enough oh well got parts ordered from bike bandit thst dont work its going to the shop

well i heated the washers until they were red hot then quenched them. torqued it till 240 inch lbs still leaking like a sieve. guess i gotta wait the 3 weeks for the washers and bolts from bike bandit. what am i doing wrong? how much do you think a mech would charge to fix this?

You can get new washers at a hardware store like Ace or True Value.

i did the 240 inch lbs still leaked figured what the hell torqued it 20 more inch lbs still leaked then 20 more inch lbs and it stopped leaking. sometimes even a blind pig finds an acorn.

Good on ya, I have been looking for a link I thought I bookmarked for a vendor of quality Aluminum and Copper metric crush washers at a reasonable price. If I can find it , I will PM you. Nice new soft and perfectly smooth C. washers will rarely give you grief, if you don't over tighten them. I'll look some more.

Found it: http://www.boltmotorcyclehardware.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=crush+washer

When I swapped out my oil cooler, and then swapped it back again, there was all kinds of gritty who-knows-what in there. Be sure everything is clean and that the sealing surfaces of the banjo bolt and motor or cooler are clean and scratch free. All the torque in the world isn't gonna fill in a scratch...

so yeah it stopped leaking for about 10 minutes. upon further inspection i noticed the threads were completely tore up in side the motor. is there a way to repair the threads without making the hole bigger. do i have to run an oil cooler or can i just plug the hole and run without one?(im thinking probably not) any advice would be greatly appreciated. maybe i ought to take this in and let someone who knows what he is doing fix it and cut my losses?

You could probably helicoil it but be careful, you don't want to get metal chips in the oil passages. I have not had mine off so I don't know if you can successfully do that with the head in place or not. I have to wonder if the threads were damaged at the factory. Wendys bike has a broken timing cover bolt because it was cross threaded at the factory. I had worked it most of the way out by moving it back and forth carefully but it snapped in the end so now one is missing at the bottom but it doesn't leak so she is not going to worry about it.There is still plenty sticking out if someone wants to try and get it the rest of the way out later.

Man, you have a real can 'o' worms going on. First,you need a thread chaser, not a tap, I'm guessing that is a NPT thread, but DO NOT assume anything, because worldwide, there is at least two and maybe three types of pipe threads, apart from the various types of other line fittings. I suggest you see a man with some bona fide machinist skills. He may be able to enlarge the hole, rethread and twist in a bushing, so that you can use your original line. Also,chasing the the threads and applying some Petro. thread sealant to the joint might bail you out as well. So, did you cross thread it or just go too tight? At least you have til spring to hash this out. If it wasn't 3000 miles. I would come over and give you a hand, as I enjoy fixing problems like yours.

yeah im frustrated as all get out. but i really dont have till spring either. Im in the army and jan 6 im going to ga for three months and then moving to fort hood texas. the bike is staying at the girls house while im at school and then im gonna trailer it to texas after that. so bottom line should i take it to the triupmh dealer and suck up the mechanic bill?

At this point I would. But, first I'd research the local machinist $$$$. Many dealers send some of this kind of stuff out to the local machinist anyway.

#1 on a "Local Machinist" That is a highly likely scenario, if you can eliminate the (stealership) middleman, your way ahead.$$$ A lot of operations can be done insitu, I sure came to appreciate that factoid during a 5 yr stint with a field machine service company. After six months, I quit saying "we are going to do what, without taking it apart"?

can i run the bike for ashort period of time with regular bolts in where the oil lines go basically disabling the oil cooler and elimnating the leak or do i need to trailer the bike to the machinist?

really frustrated and down. bought a tap and die set and it didnt do anything but blow 190 bucks. any good recomendations for a good mech not 50 miles away from leesburg va?

Tap and die is the wrong way to try and fix it, there is a similar but not same tool made to chase existing threads. Same with a helicoil tap, helicoil tap is over size to accept the coil back to original thread.

hope i didnt screw myself. its going to dealer on tuesday

Ian, he PM ed me some pics, and he has nothing to lose at this point, by 1st going with a tap. I advised the same thing (thread chaser, not a tap) and he has informed me he bought a tap at Sears Roebuck. The metal a tap is going to remove is minuscule and won't affect a thing, if it ends up He needs a Heli kit anyway and that is the best move at this point, IMO as well. I'm wondering if work hardened crush washers that required too much torque by armstrong to seal, caused this blow out in the first place, that's my best guess.

so dealer mech or heli coil?

Since you are not experienced I would have a pro do the heli coil for you. The area you are working on doesn't leave room for error. If you don't get it right the first time you will be back to having a leak. Be best if you could find a small local machine shop that would do it for you. If not then a good experienced mechanic.

yeah i found a guy who came highly recomended by our brigade motorcycle safety cordinator. she races and his card says he specializes in dirt bikes. he is also a union sheet metal worker so not a machinist but he is used to doing reasonably precise stuff

Sheet metal tradesmen have to be precise by the nature of their work, sounds like a good choice.

he did express some doubt about the helicoil hesaid something about helicoil not doing well in high pressure situations. but he did agree to at least look at it

Teflon pipe dope will give you a better chance at a successful seal, and it won't break down in the oil or heat. A lot of hydraulic construction specs call for it's use in all threaded joints. Your not dealing with pressure values nearly that high.

so put that on the bolt after u rethread the hole?

Just coating the coil you wind in from the kit should suffice. If it tends to leak, it will seep from the coil as the crush washers seal the bolt/banjo. Do you have fresh washers in hand or en route? If not, get 'em coming. You want to give this repair every chance to work. If you don't get this right the first time, it's another hole to drill, tapped for pipe thread in the head and a special bushing with a pipe tread O.D. and a Metric I.D. for your banjo or something equally ludacris. Or God forbid, even another head, Pinwall has one on EBay for $200 plus ship at the moment. But,I really do not see why a properly installed Heli coil won't fix this, myself, the pressure is not all that high, I run gauges on my 2 Spdy s and I have never seen the pressure go above 75-80 LBS on a cold engine and around 50-55 at operating Temp. cruising, 10-15 Lbs at hot idle. In real hot weather all the readings go down a bit.

You are only talking a max pressure of about 80 psi. I have coiled things with more pressure than that with no problem at all. The banjo should seal on both sides either against the engine and washer or washer on both sides. The coil only has to withstand the TQ that it will easily.

i have em coming from bike bandit