Bike has a mystery oil leak on the right hand side of the engine (as you sit on the bike). It seems to be coming from the top of the clutch cover or higher. For now I'm replacing the clutch cover gasket, I've spent far too long scraping off the old gasket. Tomorrow I plan on fitting the clutch cover back on with a new gasket AND some instant gasket.

I put the clutch cover face down on a glass table, and it seems that at one point it's 2mm or so off the table. Do these engine covers have a slight bend in them to match the engine, or should the be 100% flat?

If they should be 100% flat, I may have found my problem... although to be fair I hadn't scraped all the gasket off yet, but the height off the table seemed a little higher than what a gasket would be. I'll try get a pic tomorrow.

You need to scrape all the gakset off properly with a sharp knife before trying. don't put any knicks into the metal or it wont seal right.

if the leak is coming from above the clutch gasket then I dont think it will be the clutch cover, more likely rockerbox is leaking.

I never use gasket goo on the clutch side, you don't need it.

As in leaking from the rocker cover? I thought that but there doesn't appear to be any oil on the cylinder heads...

sometimes i can leak from a very spefic spot and trickle down in an almost unseeable place.

You already have the clutch off right, but if you still having problems after assembly what I usualyl do is buy the small square gunk in a can for a couple of quid from halfords etc.

Brush it all over the engine liberally with a 2" paint brush and after about 2 minutes go over it again with soem mroe stuff working it in niceyl

after that get a hosepipe and rinse the engine down and it should be pretty spotless.

I then take the bike for a good ride, 50 miles or so working it through the gears and what not and then check over it to find the leak.

hope you get it sorted anyway

Cheers Neo,

I think I've sorted it! I spent about 2 hours getting the gasket off, the side casing had a lot of black baked on crap that took fucking hours to soak, scratch, re-soak, re-scratch to get it off.

Took the bike for a 5 minute ride up/down the main road, no leaks. Took it for a 15 minute ride round the local village and back, still no leaks. Before, it would definitely be leaking at this point. Parked it up over night with the fairings still off above some newspaper, see what the morning brings, hopefully this will solve it!

I used gasket goo and a gasket, I also took the temp sender out and put a bit of gasket goo around the head. Used new stainless bolts in the engine casing too, felt a bit more brave tightening them up compared to the monkey metal pig iron ones it had in there!

You can always add some fluorescent dye to the oil to find leaks. That's what they use at the factory during engine testing.