PITA Oil Leak

[Mark_H]

My Strada has developed a nasty little oil leak which I cannot seem to correct.
The oil seems to be coming from the oil filter cover and collects in the region of the crankcase bolt shown in the picture. (Not the Stator Cover Bolt but the one at the back)



I have tried everything I know to stop it, but it just keeps on seeping out. I would guess it to be about a thimble full every hour or so, not too much but it collects in my skid plate then gets blown all over my rear tyre at speed, which is not good.
I cleaned the Filter cover seal mountings, applied a little grease etc. put it all back carefully.
The original O-Ring seal of the filter cover is 2.5mm so I put in a new one exactly the same, but the leak continues.
The 2.5mm O-Ring seemed a bit shallow in the mount so now I have now gone up to a 3mm size to get a good seal, and it squeezes up nicely, but still the leak persists.
I did think it might be the actual crankcase bolt leaking but when I withdrew it the bolt shaft was completely dry which indicates no problem there.
I am getting fed up with draining the oil and taking the filter cover on and off to try to correct this and now I have the new fatter O-ring in place I am beginning to think the leak is not the seal.

Anyone else experienced this or got an Idea how to fix it??

 

[nycrider]

I've had a leak coming from the oil filter cover after doing an oil change and replacing the OEM filter with kn 151 filter which was a tighter fit than OEM and I'm guessing didn't seal properly, hence the leak. Bought a few OEM's and it was back to business. I'm not sure how relevant this is to your issue, but worth a try.

 

[Mark_H]

I've had a leak coming from the oil filter cover after doing an oil change and replacing the OEM filter with kn 151 filter which was a tighter fit than OEM and I'm guessing didn't seal properly, hence the leak. Bought a few OEM's and it was back to business. I'm not sure how relevant this is to your issue, but worth a try.

Thanks but when I did my oil change I found that Husky had put in as OEM a HiFlo 151 Filter and I replaced it with exactly the same.
The leak has developed a bit of time after the oil change but it is really difficult to actually tell where it is coming from exactly.

 

[Mark_H]

Its finally fixed - 5 O-Rings later.

I gave up trying to stop the leak myself as I suspected it to be something more serious like a crack or defect.
We have a so called dealer here but they are really only sellers and not known for warranty work, or anything to do with TR650s even though they did sell plenty. They have a MOSS and still pretend that it is connected to BMW - but of course we know different.
For these reasons I was reluctant to even go there, but they just became bona fide KTM dealers with support from Austria so I was very interested in what they have.
Looking at the new KTMs and FC/FE 450 Huskies- and the service equipment......I told them about the nasty little oil leak on my Strada.
The Manager said they were very keen to improve customer relationships and the level of service as they previously had bad reviews etc.
He asked if I wanted his guys to take a look at the leak, they set to work immediately and after changing the O ring it still leaked. As I suspected they came to the same conclusion as me, it was a defect or hole in the crankcase.
Now the big surprise - bearing in mind my bike is 15 months old with 4990 km and was supplied originally from a completely different shop and I got it second hand with 600 km on it.
The manager agreed to repair my bike and although it may mean they had to replace the whole crankcase he would do it under their WARRANTY !!
I filled out the Warranty Claim forms etc and one guy said he would just like to try another O Ring before they processed the claim.
Whilst fitting the new O Ring he found a small defect in the casing, not the cover and this was allowing oil to pass under the paint and come out near the Base so it looked like a hole. They filed the metal to clean it up and scraped away the paint, then fitted the new O Ring. This cured the leak and now the bike is perfect again.
They asked me to ride the bike and observe it for a few hours and to let them know next day if it is fixed or not.
I am very impressed at the level of service I received and I have never been a customer or spent 1 peso in their shop. Simply Amazing !!
Needless to say, I rode the bike and returned 24 hours later - to tell them it was fixed and to say thank you with a case of beer !

 

[WayneC]

Mark you may well find what you are calling MOSS has been upgraded to what they will call either OSS or ISTA and is operational with the ability to reprogram your bikes, the stuff up in all that is sorted in Oz for those dealers who want to support the Terra/Strada/Nuda so it is worth asking the dealer

 

[Mark_H]

Mark you may well find what you are calling MOSS has been upgraded to what they will call either OSS or ISTA and is operational with the ability to reprogram your bikes, the stuff up in all that is sorted in Oz for those dealers who want to support the Terra/Strada/Nuda so it is worth asking the dealer

Wayne, the old MOSS Computer is sitting on the bench and they are still using it to read codes etc.
They are a new Bona Fide KTM dealer and have all the latest OSS sytem too - however for some reason they cannot/will not use it on Husqvarnas.

I am going down the ISTA road myself now, just ordered the leads to connect the bike up and will see how things go when I get the program operational.

 

[Mark_H]

An update on the PITA Oil Leak......

When I last posted in October 2015 I was convinced that the guys in the shop had actually fixed the oil leak that had been troubling me for so long, well it appears I was wrong.
I haven't actually ridden the bike so much and probably covered around 1000 km since the repair during this time there was no sign of a leak.
About two weeks ago during a longer ride I noticed the problem had returned and the oil was once again dropping into my skid plate and eventually finding its way onto my back tyre - needless to say I was not happy as i had not touched anything since it was 'fixed' before.

Rough calculations based on level checks showed that the bike was losing about 100cc of oil per 100 km, not a bad leak but not good either.

Once again I removed the filter cover and cleaned everything, replacing the O-Ring yet again.
Following reassembly and running the bike, even before it got fully warm the leak reappeared. A closer inspection showed that the oil was definitely not coming from the filter casing or joints, it was indeed appearing from just above the crankcase bolt under the filter casing, the area where the shop guys had scratched off the paint during the previous attempted repair.





There was definitely some sort of crack or defect in the casing and the oil was clearly seeping out of it with the engine running - a serious problem.

I cannot understand how the leak was apparently fixed before and remained 'fixed' for so long and how it had suddenly reappeared. The shop guys had not applied anything to the crack, they had only replaced the filter cover O-ring.

Further inspection of the inside of the filter casing reveals a possible defect in the aluminium casting, but it was not clear whether it was a crack or not. The only thing was that it seemed to be in exactly right place opposite the leak on the outer part. Also looking at the drawings in the parts manual it seemed to be the most likely as there is oil under pressure in that area. The only thing is that the casing is about 3mm thick at this point so it had to be quite a complex crack or defect.



My concern was that the bike is now 30 months old and out of warranty and the dealer here is not known for giving us any form of proper support and not known for doing a decent job either. Although I had been to the shop during the final month of the original warranty period and they had agreed to see if they could repair what they thought was a crankcase defect under warranty, they actually did not follow up on that because they thought they had fixed it in another way.

I decided that I should explore whether the 'dodgy' looking casting inside the oil filter casing was indeed the cause of the leak and if I could repair it myself it would save me a whole lot of trouble with the dealer.

Off to the local hardware store, I purchased some Devcon Epoxy Steel and got to work with the Emery paper inside the casing.



I created a decent 'key' and covered the apparent casting defects in a thin coat of the plastic steel and allowed it to set overnight.

This morning I reassembled everything in the same way as before and ran the engine through three fan cycles.
I am happy to report that the leak has once again disappeared and I may have finally solved the PITA Oil leak.

Time for another long ride to see if it holds and I can once again enjoy my Strada.