Base gasket

[XF650]

Confirmed today that oil leak on my '97 XF650 (same motor as DR650) is coming from front of base gasket. The leak is worse than I thought, which means I have had to pull out of a track day tomorrow, buggar it.
I am aware there is an upgrade (metal) gasket, as fitted new since 2002?, but I'm not in a position to do the job myself, especially before Brass Monkey.
So I'm looking for someone to do the job in Canterbury, preferably someone with experience in such things.
Any recconmendations?

[cooneyr]

Confirmed today that oil leak on my '97 XF650 (same motor as DR650) is coming from front of base gasket. The leak is worse than I thought, which means I have had to pull out of a track day tomorrow, buggar it.
I am aware there is an upgrade (metal) gasket, as fitted new since 2002?, but I'm not in a position to do the job myself, especially before Brass Monkey.
So I'm looking for someone to do the job in Canterbury, preferably someone with experience in such things.
Any recconmendations?

There is quite a bit of talk on the Yahoo DR650 group of cleaning and sealing the leaking location as a reasonably reliable fix. Make sure the leak is very clean with degreaser/break cleaner then seal with RTV of some sort (not sure what). Most times it seams to work well.

Log into the Yahoo group and have a read. Might mean an easy way to get back on the track and on your way to the Brass then fix afterwards. Costs almost nothing and pretty quick and easy.

Cheers R

[far queue]

Any recconmendations?RTV. Have a read of this (http://www.thumpertalk.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-309031.html)

[XF650]

Thanks for those comments re the RTV temp fix, which should get me mobile again quite quickly.

Been asking around re costs to do the whole job & a common comment is to replace rings at the same time, regardless of age (mine has done 20,000km's). Is that really necessary if the bore looks fine?

I have also done a wee interweb search & found link to www.kientech.com who supply a gasket kit that includes a high compression piston, rings etc landed for approx $300.00 NZ.
Has anyone here done this piston upgrade & what gains / risks should I expect?

Sorry about all the questions but grateful for any help.