I had been looking forward to this day for a
while, owing to fact that my bike has been off the road since the end of June,
plus I had only picked my bike up on Saturday from Balls Tuning in Sunshine,
and hadn’t ridden it any where other than up and down the street a couple of
times and put it on the trailer to bring it home.
Sunday morning, I am excited. Off I go,
Maroondah Hwy and Yarra Rd, pull into service road and adjust idle screw, had
stalled the bike at three sets of lights because the idle was too low. As I was
doing this, somebody on a Yamaha rode past me and then came to see what I was
doing. Surprise, surprise, it was Joel Haley. I told him what had happened and
what I was doing, and then we were on our way.
Through Warrandyte and Kangaroo Ground the
roads were damp and I was taking it easy. Around
Pulled into the servo, got off the bike, said
“Hello” to Ern, looked down and there was oil all over my left leg and boot and
the motor on my bike. Shock, horror, where’s all the bloody oil coming from? I
was pissed off. I had been waiting for weeks only to be side lined by this. I
filled the tank with petrol and pushed the bike over to where the others were
parked and put the bike on its centre stand and looked at all the oil that was
spattered every where. I wiped all the surplus oil off and wondered where the
hell it was leaking from. I said to Geoff Jones and the others that I had just
spent a heap of money on it and that I wasn’t going to ride it anywhere other
than home because I didn’t need any more expense with it. I had said to Geoff
that I had rung the pub last night and made a booking for 10 people. I would ring again in the morning when I had
the numbers.
After a brief discussion Geoff asked where I
was going to go. I told Geoff, Flowerdale, Strath Creek, Broadford, Glenaroua,
Pyalong, High Camp to Lancefield which was the first stop. From there Burke and
Wills Track turn left at cross roads and back to Kyneton, pass through the
Upper Colliban Reservoir to Spring Hill down to Trentham for lunch. After lunch
we would go to
It was a quiet ride. I stopped at Wattle Glen
to see how it was going, put bike on side stand and there was a stream of oil
running off the rocker cover like a water fall. Shock, horror, depressing! I got
back on the bike and kept going till I got home. Let the bike cool down a bit and
degreased it to get rid of the oil.
About mid afternoon I took the fairing and the
tank off and checked all the bolts and I found the front bolt on the breather
on the rocker cover was loose, so I took it off, cleaned it up and resealed it
and put it all back together and went for a ride. I checked it at Mt Evelyn and
it was okay, so I carried on to Warburton. I checked it again and there was oil
all over my leg and boot again. Where the bloody hell is the oil coming from?
So, back on the bike and ride home, another
degrease, start engine while bike is on side stand and look carefully with lead
light. It took a while. I wipe the rocker cover with a rag to get rid of
surplus oil and eventually spotted the oil leaking from under one of the oil
gallery bolts that feed oil to the camshafts and rocker gear. So, on Monday I
replaced the alloy washers with copper ones and that fixed the problem.
The trouble was that it wouldn’t start to leak
until you had done around 20 kms. It took until Friday before I could test ride
it to see if it would leak. I did 100 kms and stopped to see if it was leaking
at different intervals and it wasn’t, so I was happy.
Ron Johnston (Suzuki Bandit 1200)