Suzuki T500

[Monkey man]

Good evening all it’s been a while since I was on the forum but could do with some advice on how to fix a problem on a leaking oil line on my T500.

One of the banjos appear to be leaking and air is apparent in the same line where the banjo doesn’t tighten up properly

I tried wrapping the threads with PTE tape when I refitted the lines some time ago and hoped it would be alright.

But alas after inspecting after the winter lay off oil is ponding on the crankcase and further inspection with the carbs and oil line cover off reveals the suspected problem

Any suggestions on how to fix would be appreciated thank you .

[jabcb]

Suzuki sells aluminum crush washers for the oil lines. The original plastic washers have long been discontinued. It’s been my experience that the aluminum washers work like crap.

I use stat-o-seal washers. It’s a combo metal / rubber washers. Torqued to about 1 ft-lb.

Not sure what they are called in the UK. Link in the US:
https://www.mcmaster.com/products/stat- ... nt~metric/

Carefully remove any remnants of the PTE pipe tape. Not good for any of it to get into the motor.

[Monkey man]

Thanks but I suspect the washer will not crush/seal especially as I think the threads on the banjo are stripped and not tightening up in the receptive hole

I was thinking more like using an epoxy filler or sealer in the hole before screwing in the banjo

[jabcb]

If you use something like J-B Weld, I would expect that the banjo bolt is never coming out again.
Plus, just a little too much JB-Weld & you’ll plug up the banjo bolt hole.

A light grade of thread lock might work with extremely careful tightening.

If it were me, I’d take it to a bike shop that works on vintage bikes.

[Monkey man]

My luck might have changed - the offending hole and banjo is in the oil pump and lo and behold rummaging through my old box of parts I have an oil pump I took off a machine 10 yrs ago

Not sure why I took it off but I’ll see if it’s ok and that the banjo holes aren’t stripped and if all is well will swap them over

Otherwise I might try one of the sealers suggested

[jabcb]

Some care is needed. The T250 / GT250 / T350 / T500 oil pumps look pretty much the same.They have different flow rates. So mixing them up is bad.

A rebuild kit for the T-series oil pump is available on eBay.
The oil pump bleed screw is left hand thread & easy to break.

You can test the pump. Using a small bit of tubing you can drive the oil pump with a variable speed drill.
Just need to rig up an oil supply with a flexible tube.

[dollydog]

i just buy m6 nylon washers for my banjo bolts. work for me and cheap as chips
cheers, dd.

[Monkey man]

Update

Well I finally got to the problem of the leaking oil pipes

On examining the oil pump and banjo bolts once off the bike I saw that some of the banjo bolts were a couple of mm longer than others and weren’t allowing the connection to be properly tightened up giving me the impression that the threads were stripped- swapping banjos over for the shorter ones I was able to get a tight fix and so have put it all back together. Have fired it up today and ran it up and down the street and all appears ok so fingers crossed that’s cured the problem. Thanks for all the advice and lesson learnt