Oil Leak at Cam Cover

[franknsr]

Sharing a recent repair/update I did with some info that was kindly supplied by Jamie Jones. Had a leaking upper cam cover and Jamie told me he had seen some of the ¼ 20 socket head bolts securing the lower cam cover to the head come loose causing a leak. Opened my cover up and had a couple loose and one bolt was missing!

He recommended safety wiring the 3 or 4 bolts over the exhaust port in place as those are the ones that can come loose through many heat-cool cycles. I'm under the impression this is a bit of an odd issue so I wouldn't recommend everyone rip into their bikes to do this, just raising awareness in cause you see leaking where the cam cover meets the head.

BTW, this was the toughest safety wire job I've ever done due to the close quarters, so no ragging on my work. ;-) In one place the wire comes close to the cam so I rotated the engine over by hand a few times to ensure the cam cleared the wire.
Also, wanted to note that I think this can be done with the engine in the frame, just has to be lowered to get access to the rear head. I removed mine for other reasons.

[wytfut]

Hi ya Frank...
I have also safety wired a couple of heads.
I've also had some head with bolts sitting on top of the head, just balanced, waiting for them to fall into the unknowns. And that's why I did the safety wire also.

At the dells, Duane Judge commented that every valve cover he'd dealt with the valve cover is not flat. I've noticed that i've had at least one valve cover that simply would not completely dry up from leaking.
He said to take that valve cover to a belt sander and level it up. I'll be doing that on my front head hopefully next winter.
Bruce