Rookie mistake?

[Chill]

Recently topped up the oil on my 1987 Suzuki Intruder VS750. Must have mis-timed or not heated the bike properly..something... anyway I badly over-filled the oil it seems. It was fine for a good couple of 100km rides, then started leaking oil a lot.

Now, a month or so later it still drops oil every time you switch it off. Is there any chance this is a small problem that can be fixed easily, or have a caused a big problem? The oil drips from under the centre part of the engine and the joints in the exhausts. The bike didn't leak at all before. Thanks for any help.

[Max Preload]

Recently topped up the oil on my 1987 Suzuki Intruder VS750. Must have mis-timed or not heated the bike properly..something... anyway I badly over-filled the oil it seems. It was fine for a good couple of 100km rides, then started leaking oil a lot.

Now, a month or so later it still drops oil every time you switch it off. Is there any chance this is a small problem that can be fixed easily, or have a caused a big problem? The oil drips from under the centre part of the engine and the joints in the exhausts. The bike didn't leak at all before. Thanks for any help.

You should have drained the excess off when you discovered it. Overfilling promotes oil burning.

The oil could be coming out of the crankcase breather which is normally routed into the air box for the fumes which would otherwise accumulate in the crankcase to be burned off, but with it being over filled with oil may be pushing a bit of oil into the airbox or the breather hose from the crankcase may be disconnected, although you can usually hear that as a sort of dull popping noise. Any liquids attempting to accumulate in the airbox would normally come down a drain hose (that is gathered with the battery beather and tank filler drain hose) though so that would have to be missing or disconnected.

The best way to find a leak is clean the cold engine with degreaser (Supercheap do a kero one that's only about $3 a can - wash off with the hose and be sure to rinse the tyres well - it's slippery shit) then run the engine until it can be pin pointed. It might take a bit of riding but don't go over about 50km/h or the wind will move the oil around and youll be back to square one.