1962 Superhawk Restoration: Here I go

[redblk63]

Teazer,

Your suggestion about the countershaft sprocket oil seal sounds likely to me. Also, the suggestion to pressurize the engine and listen for air escaping. I never considered that, but sounds good.

You could remove dipstick and blow through breather hose to see that it is open, then install dipstick and see where air escapes when you blow through the breather hose.

Scott, I may be wrong about this but I believe the oil supply to the head is through the two outer studs on the FRONT of the engine. To check oil supply you would loosen one of the nuts on those. I'd be too worried about disturbing the head gasket to do that. I vote for whoever said to look under the valve adjustment cover.

Good luck.
Larry (I have a similar oil leak, by the way, but have not yet pulled the RHS cover to diagnose)

[Vince Lupo]

Interesting that it was mentioned about the two studs at the front of the engine -- I had a problem with my kicker shaft seal leaking after particularly brisk runs. It happened three times, and we tried Yamabond and all kinds of things to prevent this from happening, but nothing seemed to work. Then, I was speaking with our good friend Loud Mouse, and he wondered aloud whether the head gasket had been installed backwards. Backwards? How can you do that? Well, it seems that there are two holes at one end the head gasket that line up with those oil vent holes, and if the gasket is installed backwards it basically blocks those two holes. The oil has to escape somewhere, since those holes were now blocked, and in my case it chose the kicker shaft seal. Turns out we did have the head gasket installed backwards -- we switched it around, and that cured it.

[teazer]

That last post may be slightly ambiguous.

It is physically possible to place a head gasket on backwards over the studs but it does not ling up with the bores and will not fit over the two dowels on the front studs. In addition the gasket would overhang the front of the cam chain tunnel and "underhang" at the rear.

It looks so wrong that i have difficulty believing anyone did that.

Maybe we are talking about the top cover gaskets where the oil separator plate sits. It is possible to place that one on back to front which would block the passage of oil mist out the breather and would tend to pressurize the bottom end.

The plate should have the oil drain holes at the front and the gasket should match it. In theory oil mist still rises through the two other holes under the plate but one the top cavity fills with oil, it would be difficult for the crankcase pressure to vent and oil may indeed start to come out of the bottom end.

Kudos to LM for mentioning that and to Vince for remembering it. that could very well prove to be the issue here.

[Spargett]

All very empirical theories. I didn't have a chance to get the bike today to try a few things, but here's what I do know.

The right side wasn't leaking when first go her back together. Only after splitting the lower end to replace the transmission, and therefor all oil seals while I was down there. None of the top end gaskets had changed. Only the lower end.

I need to do two things next. Pull off the drive sprocket and take a closer look. If I don't see anything new there, then try venting a spare dipstick Fast Fred has for me.

If neither of those work, it's back to the top end to double check a few things. Plenty of oil is getting to the top. I open the valve covers while letting the bike idle, a healthy stream made it's way out within a few moments of idle.

Thank you everyone for all your help, I'll report as soon as I find new info.

[Spargett]

PS, rode the bike to work today. As I mentioned this weekend, she's running wonderfully (a few leaks aside). Here it is parked in one of the unused conference rooms downstairs.

[Dgormley]

Scott, She is a thing of beauty!...................................D

[mobilyte]

looking through the pics of your resto work, i have 2 questions:

1. is that a rear wheel spacer that's been turned down?

2. the top circle looks like the bushing that should be installed between the chrome fork rib and bottom fork cover, not between the fork bridge and top fork cover. the other circle...is that an o-ring on the fork tube?