Hi. I have an '82 XJ650L turbo, just bought it. It is leaking around the drive shaft toward the engine. Is there a history of the shaft leaking? If so, where? Is it easy to fix? Is it cost effective to fix? Will it hurt it to drive it if I keep an eye on the oil level? :)
laura

If it's gear lube from the rear drive, checking the oil won't help. Most likely, you have a bad seal somewhere at the engine output end. Seals are usually no big deal to replace. It might require some disassembly of the swingarm and rear end, but the seal itself should be changeable without much hassle.

hey, thanks. Do you by any chance know of a good sight to get the seal I would need?
:rolleyes:

If there is a faulty seal, it should be removed as intact as possible. That way, you can probably bring it to a bearing supply shop, or hydraulics supply shop and have it measured and replaced by a non-Yamaha part and save money. If the seal failed, you must also find out why. Is the bearing it seals shot, and vibrating enough to wobble and eat the seal? Is the shaft it rides on rusted, and chewing up the seal? Is there pressure building up behind the seal, causing oil blowby? Is the shaft it rides on gouged to the point where even a new seal won't fix the problem? One guy had a problem with the rubber boot on the joint not being vented at the bottom, allowing water to collect and destroy the u-joint in there. However, you must find the root cause before throwing parts at the problem. Good luck. It probably isn't serious.

If you want to find a definite replacement, go with the Yamaha part, or look up the OEM parts breakdown for your bike at bikebandit.com

Look at part # 14 in this schematic. This is the first seal I would suspect.


Possible Leak Location

This is located inside the flexible rubber boot, on the end of the motor.

There are also two smaller oil seals on each end of the driveshaft itself, inside the swingarm. If these are leaking, it means final drive oil is what's coming out of your bike, and checking engine oil will tell you nothing.

Make sure that it is not something else like crankcase blowby, or the oil feed line to the turbo that's leaking. The Seca Turbo has it's own set of oil leak issues that can be dealt with at another time.