Oil leak around exhaust bolts

[Peteortiz11]

Hi All, I had recently replaced a rusted out V&H exhaust system on my bike (1982 GS850gl) with a Delkevic exhaust. i had a hard time removing to bolts and a few snapped in the process. I purchased some replacement bolts and hooked the whole thing back up and what Im seeing is, what appears to be oil leaking from around the bolts. has this happened to anyone?

[fastbysuzuki]

It may be coming from the tachometer drive there is a small seal and oring in there it is prone to leaking, or the cam cover
if you cannot locate the leak clean/degrease the area dry and spray on foot powder start up the bike and look for damp in the powder.

[Peteortiz11]

Great. Thank you!! will do and get back

[rphillips]

Yep, what he said, no other source of oil near those bolts. Another thought, I've found holding exhaust in place while getting collars & flanges lined up & bolts started without being cross threaded is waaay easier with waaay less chance of twisting bolts off if studs are installed in place of the bolts. It made a world of difference for me.

[Peteortiz11]

Great advice. Thanks again!

[bwringer]

No idea whether this is your problem or not, but there have been cases where someone drilled too far when dealing with exhaust bolts and punched through into the area under the camshafts.

To recover from that, you'd need to figure out where you punched through, determine whether the head is now scrap or not, install studs with some sort of sealer around the threads, and make sure you limit the depth so that they're not contacting anything inside.



But the tacho seals or oil dripping from a leaky valve cover gasket are far more common.

https://www.bwringer.com/gs/tachcableseals.html