Oil out the left side exhaust

[Jeff K]

A friend has a Valk and he sent me a picture of a LARGE pool of oil coming out of the drain hole of the header on the left side. And it is smoking like a mosquito fogger.  He said the smoke never clears up, it gets worse as you ride.
I figured it might be valve seals but they look fine.
The plugs look fine which now makes me think it might be from the smog system?
He says it runs fine just smokes bad.
I'm trying to help him from a distance. If it were here I'd drop the pipe and see which port is full of oil.

[gordonv]

Does this person know how to check his oil level?

With the bike standing UPRIGHT and the Dip Stick unscrewed, wipe the stick, insert into engine block (DO NOT SCREW it in), remove and inspect.

I would almost bet you he checks his oil with the bike on the side stand, and might even screw it in.

[Tfrank59]

well over filled (and we're talking way over filled) with oil would be best case scenario for this, but another possibility might be a blown head gasket?

[Jess from VA]

I have nothing useful to add.

And am sorry to find humor here.  But please do not show this to any of our Hog rider friends.  We would never hear the end of it.  

[Jeff K]

It is not over full of oil.

[Valker]

Does his clutch show evidence of shearing the rivets? If so, they plug the screen and lay a smoke screen like a WW2 destroyer. This will pool in the lower exhaust and drip out.

[Roidfingers]

Valker, what the evidence if it happened over night?

[Blackduck]

 That much oil could cause a hydrolock.
Strange it did not show up on the plugs, which may indicate it is after the cylinders.
Any recent servicing or repairs?
Any oil in the drool tube?

[Grumpy]

Does his clutch show evidence of shearing the rivets? If so, they plug the screen and lay a smoke screen like a WW2 destroyer. This will pool in the lower exhaust and drip out.

That would be my thoughts also, the crank case air vent for the motor comes out of the rear case, if the screen is plugged, could be  building the oil up in the clutch housing until it is forced into the air box. With the air supply to the reed valves being the lowest part of the air cleaner the oil will drain into the smog circuit. Oil from there would exit into the exhaust ports, and not go through the cylinders, so no fouled plugs.

[Valker]

Valker, what the evidence if it happened over night?

Creeps ahead as the clutch won't completely disengage. May be hard or impossible to squeeze the lever all the way in. Clunks exceptionally loudly and jumps going into first.

[Jeff K]

Does his clutch show evidence of shearing the rivets? If so, they plug the screen and lay a smoke screen like a WW2 destroyer. This will pool in the lower exhaust and drip out.

That would be my thoughts also, the crank case air vent for the motor comes out of the rear case, if the screen is plugged, could be  building the oil up in the clutch housing until it is forced into the air box. With the air supply to the reed valves being the lowest part of the air cleaner the oil will drain into the smog circuit. Oil from there would exit into the exhaust ports, and not go through the cylinders, so no fouled plugs.

THis is what I was thinking. I told him to look for oil in the air box, and to drop that side header and see if it is coming from the port with the smog tube on it.

[Firefighter]

Wow! That looks like too much oil on the ground to be going through the cylinder, sure there is not an oil leak that is pouring oil on the exhaust and not through it? I wouldn't think the engine could run right with that kind of oil running through it. If crankcase pressure is too high, like crankcase vent problems that might pump the oil out somewhere. Wish I could look at that one, please let us know!!

[Jeff K]

Hmm, no oil in the air box.

[John Schmidt]

Jeff, are you sure nobody is pranking him like I did a cousin of mine many years ago? He had just finished restoring a late '40's Indian and did a sweet job on it, ran beautiful. One day when he wasn't watching, I used a large oil can and shot some old oil up a pipe, enough so that kinda ran out onto the driveway. We came out later and while chatting he suddenly acted like he was having a stroke, ran over to his bike and pointed to the oil dripping out. I helped him clean up the mess on the drive and around the pipe, then he went for his tools. I finally stopped him before he started tearing it down. On our next ride, he made me follow him for a few miles until all the oil burned out....it smoked like a fog bank. 

[TJ]

How about the crank case breather , If it came off it would put out oil and then run to the left side of the bike when on stand....

[gordonv]

But it's pouring out the pipe drain hole.

Only fogging from the one side or both?

[Jeff K]

He said it is pouring out the drain hole on the left side header collector.
Next I told him to drop the header and see which port is leaking

[Bighead]

Where does he live? Might be someone in the area that could have a look.

[Jeff K]

Southern Wisconsin

[indybobm]

With that much oil 'coming out of the engine' I do not see how it could run as good as he says it does.

[Jeff K]

Well, the plot thickens.
I quizzed him some more.
It turns out that it wouldn't crank over and he thought the battery was dead, the crankcase was full of fuel. He has since changed the oil twice and it is still spewing oil.

I figured there had to be something else.

Header and muffler are probably still full of oil from that incident.

[Steel cowboy]

HYDROLOCK .....so bad the fuel is seeping around the rings, and into the crank. If he has ran it with the oil thinned out from the fuel it could cause very serious damage. He should remove the fuel line and check if fuel is flowing from the petcock with it turned off and with no vacuum applied. Probably needs rebuilding, the float valves are probably bad too.

[Jeff K]

HYDROLOCK .....so bad the fuel is seeping around the rings, and into the crank. If he has ran it with the oil thinned out from the fuel it could cause very serious damage. He should remove the fuel line and check if fuel is flowing from the petcock with it turned off and with no vacuum applied. Probably needs rebuilding, the float valves are probably bad too.

Most hydrolock Valks I have worked on did not need new float valves. The problem was more with debris in the fuel system. It doesn't take much to hold a valve open.
But a bad petcock diaphragm is also a possibility.

[Jeff K]

Though I haven't owned too many 6 pack Valks lately,. I do actually own one now.

[Steel cowboy]

Most Valkyrie owners I know do not have fuel filters and mine does not have one either. The screen in the tank does a good job of removing any particles that could clog the carb's. You mentioned debris in the fuel line. With the screen in the tank the only debris could be varnish or rust from ethenal fuel absorbing water and settling to the bottom of the bowl. I rebuilt the carb's on my bike with only 37,000 on the speedometer, the P/O only used the bike a couple of times in the year before I bought her. There was varnish in the bottom of the bowls and the low speed jets had varnish deposits I could not tell if the float valve tips had varnish on them. The tips of the float valves are rubber and we all know what ethanol fuel will do to rubber eventually. I did change the float valves for peace of mind and with the price being low, it was a no brainier. In my book the first line reads "when in doubt replace".

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[Jeff K]

My carbureted Valk has a fuel filter, and an electric shutoff valve.
When I bought it a couple of years ago,  it had 18,000 miles on it and it had just been in to have the carbs cleaned and rebuilt, and it was running like crap. I got a good deal on it. I took it home and pulled the carbs. They were full of rust and gunk. I pulled the tank, and the screen was there, and had debris on it, but it didn't stop all the crap from the tank from getting to the carbs.
I cleaned them all up again, put new jets in, and put an inline filter and shutoff. Then I cleaned the tank and screen.
I also disabled the stock petcock.

[98valk]

and the fuel inlet to each carb bowl has a screen filter also.

[Jeff K]

and the fuel inlet to each carb bowl has a screen filter also.

Yeah, but as we all know, that isn't enough.