2011 R1200R oil leak
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:10 pm
Driving my new R1200R home last week I noticed an oil leak. It was just a couple of drops from the bearing of the side stand or center stand. I forget which.
I took it back to the shop and they determined the drip was from higher up on the engine. We agreed that they would address it at the 600 mile service and I would watch it in the meantime.
The leak continued but it was very slow. I would see an occasional drop but the main indicator was that when sitting stationary on the bike with a tail wind at night I could see smoke in the headlight beam.
Today it got much worse and there was quite a bit of smoke coming off the engine. I pulled over and there was a drop every few seconds hitting the exhaust manifold which was the cause of all the smoke. In the span of 10 seconds five drops hit the pavement before I turned the bike off. When the bike was turned off the leak stopped immediately.
The leak was coming down the backside of the left cylinder from a point too high to actually see the source.
I had the bike towed in due to the rapid rate at which oil was dripping when the bike was turned on.
It turned out to be a bad crush washer on the cam chain tensioner. The cam chain tensioner is just below the connection point for the telelever. It was impossible to determine the actual source of the leak without disassembling the bike. Hopefully your new bike doesn't leak but if it does and it seems to be coming from the same place perhaps my experience will be of benefit to you.
Sander
I took it back to the shop and they determined the drip was from higher up on the engine. We agreed that they would address it at the 600 mile service and I would watch it in the meantime.
The leak continued but it was very slow. I would see an occasional drop but the main indicator was that when sitting stationary on the bike with a tail wind at night I could see smoke in the headlight beam.
Today it got much worse and there was quite a bit of smoke coming off the engine. I pulled over and there was a drop every few seconds hitting the exhaust manifold which was the cause of all the smoke. In the span of 10 seconds five drops hit the pavement before I turned the bike off. When the bike was turned off the leak stopped immediately.
The leak was coming down the backside of the left cylinder from a point too high to actually see the source.
I had the bike towed in due to the rapid rate at which oil was dripping when the bike was turned on.
It turned out to be a bad crush washer on the cam chain tensioner. The cam chain tensioner is just below the connection point for the telelever. It was impossible to determine the actual source of the leak without disassembling the bike. Hopefully your new bike doesn't leak but if it does and it seems to be coming from the same place perhaps my experience will be of benefit to you.
Sander
