Are my crank seals blown??

[jaybob]

Hi I just got a '75 GT550. Runs and starts great. Previous owner bored it first over with new rings. I'm thinking he only did the top end.

Anyway my problem is that I have oil leaking from what looks like the left cylinder base and maybe coming out the left exhaust flange. Looks like gearbox oil.

Do I try to re-torque the cylinder to the case? Or is that futile and most likely the crank seal is shot? wouldn't it run funny or start hard if my crank seal was bad? The bike is a one kick starter.

How do you tell if your gearbox oil is low or full? I have checked it and I can see the oil with the cap off and the bike standing upright, but it does not look full and I see that it only holds 500cc.

The bike has 14,000 on the non working odometer

Thanks
Jason

[Arne]

Take the left exhaust flange off, clean it, and re-seal it with RTV Orange available from an auto parts store.

The crank seals are on your crank and not up by the base of your cylinders. (round things that go around the crank and seal the ends up and seal it up between the cylinders).

If you're crank seals are blown usually it will not idle right and blow some smoke, also hard to start.

You may be talking about your cylinder base gasket, but I'd fix the exhaust flange first and see if that fixes the leak. If it doesn't then off with the cylinder and throw a new cylinder base gasket on it.

Good luck!

[jaybob]

Arne,

Thanks much for the info (on all three topics) I am becoming better educated on this bike every day.

Jason