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THIS TIP IS MOSTLY EXACTLY AS EARL FORNES SUGGESTED IT TO ME. I WENT A LITTLE OVER BOARD ON SOME OF THE STEPS BECAUSE I FAILED AT IT A FEW TIME BY BEING IN A HURRY.
..epoxies adhere and seal poorly if at all on oily
surfaces and I wouldnt try to use them for your purpose.
Once hardened, they can also be difficult to remove.
If the epoxy you have already put on cannot be popped
free with a finger or a wooden scraper, I would chuck a
small sewn fabric buffing wheel into an electric drill
and buff it off.
The buffing wheel will heat up the old epoxy and
clean it off the bike fairly quickly with no chance of
gouging or scratching your engine case. I would then
(with no oil in the bike) do the following
take a rag and some acetone and thoroughly clean and
dry the leaking seam. Leave it sit for a half hour to
see if any more oil weeps through. If it does, acetone
and a rag again. Do this until no more oil is seen to
keep weeping through. Once clean and dry,
Clean the paint from the surface to be siliconed. use
a wire brush to be sure it is shiny and clean. Use
acetone in a sprayer. Spray over and over in adition to
uing many clean rags.
In some cased it would be to your advantage to put a
strip of masking tape on each side of the seam about
1/4" from the seam on both sides, That will give you a
1/2" wide "fill" area. My first choice of filler would
be a clear compounded urethane/silicone caulk made by
Boat Life and called LIFE SEAL. It has much better
adhesive properties than plain silicone and is
considerably more durable. If you do go this route, it
is available at any marina or marine supply. Just be
sure you buy LIFE SEAL. The salesman may want to sell
you LIFE CAULK which is made by the same company but is
an entirely different product. I couldnt find the clear
so i used black. You can,if you must, use Hi Temp RTV
(silicone) available at auto parts stores. Either way,
the one thing you must have is a clean, dry surface that
is not going to weep any oil before the sealer has a
chance to set. This means about 4 to 6 hours on a 60 to
70 deg day. (I would seal the seam full width across the
front of the engine) or whatever side the leak is on.
Some notes from doing Scottys bike. I (Scotty), had
failed a few times and i attribute the failures to not
prepairing the surface properly. When i put the epoxy
over the seam. When i used the silicone i did it the way
Earl suggested. I was fortunate to have an area of the
cases shaped like a v(a vally , not a ridge.) I added
the first coat with a plastic scraper that I cut down
for this job. I was able to feel the weak spot in the
gasket and used the scraper to push a bit of the
silicone into that spot. I let it set for a while and
applied a second coat. I let it cure for 2 days to be
sure that this heavy coat had cured all the way
through(maybe not necessary but I felt better doing it
that way. A week of riding about since the repair and
not a drop is even seeping from that gasket leak.
Any corrections will be added by earl when he reads
this post and then I will edit the original at that
time.
..epoxies adhere and seal poorly if at all on oily
surfaces and I wouldnt try to use them for your purpose.
Once hardened, they can also be difficult to remove.
If the epoxy you have already put on cannot be popped
free with a finger or a wooden scraper, I would chuck a
small sewn fabric buffing wheel into an electric drill
and buff it off.
The buffing wheel will heat up the old epoxy and
clean it off the bike fairly quickly with no chance of
gouging or scratching your engine case. I would then
(with no oil in the bike) do the following
take a rag and some acetone and thoroughly clean and
dry the leaking seam. Leave it sit for a half hour to
see if any more oil weeps through. If it does, acetone
and a rag again. Do this until no more oil is seen to
keep weeping through. Once clean and dry,
Clean the paint from the surface to be siliconed. use
a wire brush to be sure it is shiny and clean. Use
acetone in a sprayer. Spray over and over in adition to
uing many clean rags.
In some cased it would be to your advantage to put a
strip of masking tape on each side of the seam about
1/4" from the seam on both sides, That will give you a
1/2" wide "fill" area. My first choice of filler would
be a clear compounded urethane/silicone caulk made by
Boat Life and called LIFE SEAL. It has much better
adhesive properties than plain silicone and is
considerably more durable. If you do go this route, it
is available at any marina or marine supply. Just be
sure you buy LIFE SEAL. The salesman may want to sell
you LIFE CAULK which is made by the same company but is
an entirely different product. I couldnt find the clear
so i used black. You can,if you must, use Hi Temp RTV
(silicone) available at auto parts stores. Either way,
the one thing you must have is a clean, dry surface that
is not going to weep any oil before the sealer has a
chance to set. This means about 4 to 6 hours on a 60 to
70 deg day. (I would seal the seam full width across the
front of the engine) or whatever side the leak is on.
Some notes from doing Scottys bike. I (Scotty), had
failed a few times and i attribute the failures to not
prepairing the surface properly. When i put the epoxy
over the seam. When i used the silicone i did it the way
Earl suggested. I was fortunate to have an area of the
cases shaped like a v(a vally , not a ridge.) I added
the first coat with a plastic scraper that I cut down
for this job. I was able to feel the weak spot in the
gasket and used the scraper to push a bit of the
silicone into that spot. I let it set for a while and
applied a second coat. I let it cure for 2 days to be
sure that this heavy coat had cured all the way
through(maybe not necessary but I felt better doing it
that way. A week of riding about since the repair and
not a drop is even seeping from that gasket leak.
Any corrections will be added by earl when he reads
this post and then I will edit the original at that
time.
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