Hi All,
I am new to this forum (and to these bikes), so hopefully I am posting this in the correct place. I did some searching beforehand and couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for so with any luck this question won’t be too repetitive…
I recently bought my first K-bike, a 1985 K100RS. So far I am a big fan, but unfortunately while I was looking over the bike before I bought it I did not notice that it has an oil leak from the bell housing weep hole (live and learn…). From my searching through the many posts on this and other forums about this issue I know that the leak is likely from either the rear main seal or clutch nut o-ring. I am fairly confident the oil is engine oil because it does not have the nasty smell of gear oil and the color seems about right. I was going to remove the trans anyway to check and re-lubricate the input shaft splines, so this issue will just move up that time table a bit. While I have the trans out I plan on replacing the o-ring and the rear main seal, as well as the clutch, which brings me to my question. I assume at this point that the friction plate has been impregnated with at least some oil, even if it is a small amount. With this thought in mind, and because I doubt the clutch has ever been replaced (the bike only has 38,000 miles on it), I am planning on just replacing the clutch while I have the trans out. So since the clutch is going to be replaced anyway, do you all see any issues with continuing to ride the bike for now until the weather turns (maybe a month or two at most)? I would think the only parts the flinging oil could ruin would be the friction plate and potentially the pressure plate (if oil on the friction plate leads to excessive localized heating on the pressure plate), but I’ve come to you all to make sure I would not be doing extra damage I don’t want to be doing. As I said, the clutch is not currently slipping and the bike seems to be otherwise operating normally. Also the leak does not seem to be so severe that the engine is losing any significant amount of oil.
Your thoughts and advice are much appreciated.
I've attached a picture of the oil leak if anyone is interested.
Cheers!
(By the way, since we are sort of on the subject, can I use the same lubricant I used on the drive shaft splines for the input shaft splines, or is there some separate lubricant specifically for the input shaft splines? I used Loctite Moly Paste, LB 8012 Metal-Free Low Friction Lubricant on the drive shaft splines.)
