The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
Last night I removed the engine from my 1979 Honda XL500S. It recently developed multiple oil leaks from a variety of gaskets. From what I could tell, the engine has never been fully serviced throughout its 7000 miles of run time over the last 33 years. Considering nothing was ever done to the engine, it is remarkably clean. I expect this job to only require gasket replacement and no other work. Hopefully I can have the engine back into my bike by Sunday in time for a ride with Drew.
Andrea sent me these photos to post from a bike that was resuscitated. Here is Andrea’s explanation of the photos:
As you can see, on the first picture of the engine the leaking is coming from the front and rear cylinder just below the spark plug. It is exactly where it is located the head gasket.
The bike was sitting in a warehouse for ages, and I bought for less than $ 1,000 . I found it had a bad connecting rod bearing. Now it is perfect.
..note the sludge in the crankcase.
I hope these pictures will help…
It just goes to show that even fairly significant problems in our PC800 engines (very rare!) can be fixed with just a little effort. Thanks for the information, Andrea!
