A lot of steam exiting the valve cover vent, engine suddenly stalls.

[Guest]

It could not have happened at a worst time. I was leaving for one of my friends to do an overhaul of my carbs, new Exhausts, new gaskets and all of a sudden I here some sort of deflating sound, I noticed a lot of steam coming from the valve cover air vent and all of a sudden the engine dies. Let it cool. Start it up, go a little ways, steam starts coming out and drops dead. At least I know my valve cover air vent works.

No blue smoke from the exhaust.
Leaky valve guides?

Cylinder pressure is
120
98
115
99
I know they suck.



Does any body know what this could be?
Do you think I can still do some highway to get to my friends garage?

The wort part is that this winter, it's is planed that she is getting a total rebuild. Every single thing! Including total engine tear down.

[tom203]

Steam means water to me- any chance you had recent fill up and got a bonus water additive in your gas?

[huntb]

Garage kept or kept outside? If kept outside has it rained recently? Maybe your air vent is acting as a two way vent

[eil]

More details needed...

You're absolutely sure it's steam? As in water? And not smoke from burnt oil?

Did this happen while riding?

Was the engine fully warm when it happened the first time?

If it is water, the only way for it to get into your engine oil is from lots and lots of condensation or rain. Not sure how that would cause the engine to stall.

If it's smoke, then it's from a bearing overheating and burning oil. (Which would also explain the engine stalling.)

I guess the next step is to drain some (or all) of the oil to see what it looks like.

[c&c]

I`v been away from the computer. It`s garage kept. Dry as a bone.
It was two problems in one. First the carb is crap. I just finished rebuilding it today. the vacuum was some how blocked or there was an air leak. If I put the petcok to prime it worked perfectly. For the steam, it stopped and no new steam cam out. No smoke from the exhaust. I`ll close this thread. Weird.