Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Oil leak

I just got home and parked my 13 BA and noticed that oil was dripping under it. It looks to be coming from the charcoal cylinder underneath the bike. It is too dark to see much tonight so I will have to wait till tomorrow.
Anyone have an idea what this might be????

How much oil,a few drops? The air box has drain hoses that will weep sometimes. This is basically blow by from the crankcase and not a big concern.
I've noticed this a couple of times, usually after I've rung the piss out of her.
Post a pic if you can

I went home today during lunch to look at it. Fired her up and she starts leaking. Crawled under to look and the oil filter is punctured. Easy fix, but DAMN!!!

I know this has been discussed before. What are ways to prevent this?

don't hit stuff

Was it punctured on the side of the filter body or on the bottom? I protect mine like this:
Or spend the time and money and do a filter relocate.

Thanks for the advice Ian. I'll try that next time.
It is punctured on the bottom leading edge. No clue what or when I hit anything. Had to of happened within 1 mile of the house.

You are lucky that it wasn't worse, you could have lost all your oil.

Just changed the oil and filter. Only had 1600 on the oil. Looks like I lost about 2 qrts.

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Seems as if your front tire had to go directly over, whatever whacked your filter. Have you got evil tempered Samurai s hiding under the manhole covers in your area?

I've been all over ebay and Google looking for a protective sleeve and have come up with a zero. Just found some sites like ours talking about it.
I can see this thing in my noggin-an extruded finned aluminum sleeve with a base tig welded on to it, held onto the filter with strong magnets recessed into the base. The magnets would double as an iron particle grabber. We should talk to a manufacturer to assess the financial viability of this thing. A patent would be good. Get on it.

The old saying that "if the tree will not bend to the wind, it will surely break" may apply here. If a cover is made relatively indestructible, an impact might fug up the threaded appendage the filter mounts to. That's why I went with the Brass shim, tough stuff with plenty of give, as well as a bonus heat sink. And the chance that if the puncture is high up enough on the filter body, I can roll the shim as many degrees as needed to make a crude submarine pipe patch and hopefully make it to the store..Disclaimer: one has to realize something has hit your filter and it is bleeding out.

danggit, I was gonna be a millionaire

Wade, our oil filters are hanging in the wind, and 2 or 3 peeps a year are reporting on here of punctured filters, obviously we don't hear about, even half of the incidents. So there is a niche market, and a need for a solution. Your metal comdom/cup magnetically fastened idea sounds fine to me, Aluminum is even tougher stuff than Brass if it's thick enough. I know it would look better than my hillbilly engineered cover. My favorite place to ride is called, 100 miles from anywhere in Montana or Idaho, so i just wanted to cut the odds that it would happen to me.

I concur. Upon further analysis, it appears that a rigid sleeve would possibly cause the filter threads to be sheared off in the event of contact with really hard things, like Jaywalker Noggins. I can see this thing in my head, a 3/16" sheared and cross-stamped chrome moly steel skidplate held on with six grade 8 bolts.

Would a skidplate for a Scrambler fit/work.

You could use what the Roadster and Tiger 800 use to protect the filter, a steal friction fit cover. Comes in black and chrome. It really is a tight fit on the filter so it shouldn't fall off.

EBAY CLICKY or the PURE TRIUMPH PAGE have examples for sale.