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The veefalo she is smoking. *valve cover oring*


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Went for a long ride Monday with my usual crew. They tell me the 1200 is puffing blue smoke out of the exhaust when it decelerates.

 

OK

 

1) crankcase ventilation malfunctioning?

 

2) valve seals, valve guides.

 

3) bad rings?

 

I suppose I need to get to the heads and do a pressure test. I'm gonna need a proper adapter for my pressure guage. 

 

I'm notrying even sure if there is a pcv or pair valve to test, well there has to be. 

 

Ideas suggestions?

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Make sure you don't have too much oil in there. 

A pressure test won't show up a bad valve seal or guide. 

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How many miles on the engine ?  Blue smoke = oil burn, on deceleration that is normally valve seals, but thats not guaranteed. Honda engine valve seals are normally good for >100K/miles if engine maintenance is good. That said a friend with a 1200, found one valve rocker & roller lobe badly worn/pitted. Honda UK replaced the parts FOC even though it was out of warranty, he did the work himself.  So may be worth a look under the valve cover !

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HS, years ago I noticed a significant amount of oil in my VFR750's airbox. Never did figure out the cause (overfilling the oil?) as it only happened the one time. It might be something as simple on your 1200. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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On 6/21/2017 at 2:37 AM, HispanicSlammer said:

Went for a long ride Monday with my usual crew. They tell me the 1200 is puffing blue smoke out of the exhaust when it decelerates.

 

OK

 

1) crankcase ventilation malfunctioning?

 

2) valve seals, valve guides.

 

3) bad rings?

 

I suppose I need to get to the heads and do a pressure test. I'm gonna need a proper adapter for my pressure guage. 

 

I'm notrying even sure if there is a pcv or pair valve to test, well there has to be. 

 

Ideas suggestions?

Any more info on what might be wrong?

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Wanted to say ride it into the ground and swap the engine, but the only one I see on ebay is $2k.

 

 

I would do the following:

  1. Do a leak-down and pressure test
  2. Pop the valve covers and inspect for obvious signs of ware on the cam lobes

If no issues, ride it into the ground :)

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  • 1 month later...
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Very interested in anything you've come up with Miguel.  My 1200 has been puffing a small bit of oil smoke on start up. Been doing this over the last 2 oil changes.  Oil level drops in the sight glass between changes but has never dropped below low mark...so I've carried on.  Two days ago after a bit of twisty road, the oil pressure light came on.  Pulled over and saw no oil in sight glass.  Had Mrs. Marsman bring out a few qts., and it took 1 3/4 to fill.  I'm still 1500 miles from next scheduled change, so it has gotten significantly worse.  Not absolutely sure, but seems to have started roughly after I ran through a valve check/adjust.  Can't think of anything I could I have buggered up, but looks to be the "smoking gun".  Unless we're seeing early stage of a mfg. defect.

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On 9/10/2017 at 9:38 AM, Marsman99 said:

Very interested in anything you've come up with Miguel.  My 1200 has been puffing a small bit of oil smoke on start up. Been doing this over the last 2 oil changes.  Oil level drops in the sight glass between changes but has never dropped below low mark...so I've carried on.  Two days ago after a bit of twisty road, the oil pressure light came on.  Pulled over and saw no oil in sight glass.  Had Mrs. Marsman bring out a few qts., and it took 1 3/4 to fill.  I'm still 1500 miles from next scheduled change, so it has gotten significantly worse.  Not absolutely sure, but seems to have started roughly after I ran through a valve check/adjust.  Can't think of anything I could I have buggered up, but looks to be the "smoking gun".  Unless we're seeing early stage of a mfg. defect.

How many miles on your motorcycle and what is your standard oul change interval?  That's a hell of a lot of oil to lose.

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9 hours ago, swimmer said:

How many miles on your motorcycle and what is your standard oul change interval?  That's a hell of a lot of oil to lose.

 

Yeah, it is.  My 1200 has roughly 46.5k miles on it.  Oil/filters changed per Honda service intervals, i.e. every 8k.  Should not be having any such issues...it's a VFR after all.  My '94 has >120k on it and doesn't lose a drop of oil.  I'll be keeping tabs very closely now and doing some testing.

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Yeah, mine has just under 47k miles as well and burns no oil that I can notice between oil changes which are about every 5k miles.  Not to hijack the OP but, let us know if/when you find the cause.

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Same here...60K miles with no oil burn.  I change oil and filter every 3K.  Only time I had an issue was during a valve inspection when an o ring on the back valve cover fell off while putting the cover back on.  It used oil at a rate of about a half quart every 500 miles.  Once I got the o ring back on it stopped using oil.  That was over 25K miles ago. 

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2 hours ago, swimmer said:

@Marsman99  , do you think that might be your problem as well?  That you are missing the o-ring seal on the valve cover after your valve inspection?

 

Nope, there are no leaks anywhere that I can see...on the bike or floor.  I'm going to tear into it this weekend to try to figure it out.

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On September 13, 2017 at 12:38 PM, c5ip said:

Same here...60K miles with no oil burn.  I change oil and filter every 3K.  Only time I had an issue was during a valve inspection when an o ring on the back valve cover fell off while putting the cover back on.  It used oil at a rate of about a half quart every 500 miles.  Once I got the o ring back on it stopped using oil.  That was over 25K miles ago. 

 

C5ip, I read on another thread regarding valve adjusts someone commented on burning oil because dealer forgot a seal on the back cover.  This loops me back to your comment.  Did your bike burn oil or leak oil w/o the seal?  I can't recall any seals that are touched during valve adjust which would permit oil into the combustion chamber or exhaust.

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There are two o-ring seals on both head covers for the PAIR valve air joints.  One of those on the back head cover fell off.  To me, it seemed like it was burning oil vice leaking it.  Page 9-8 of the service manual shows the o-rings in question. 

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On September 17, 2017 at 8:37 AM, c5ip said:

There are two o-ring seals on both head covers for the PAIR valve air joints.  One of those on the back head cover fell off.  To me, it seemed like it was burning oil vice leaking it.  Page 9-8 of the service manual shows the o-rings in question. 

 

Ah, a lights on moment.  Yes, a leaky PAIR o-ring would allow top end oil into the exhaust port and burned in the exhaust gas.  I'm usually pretty careful during reassembly, but will check this now.  This could be more pronounced on decel when the PAIR pushes air into the exhaust port.  Thanks.  Miguel may want to look at this too.

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  • 2 months later...

My 2013 used oil at the rate of one qt./ 500 miles. Began after the local dealer performed the 16k valve inspection. Trouble was, when I discovered the problem, I was in Nova Scotia working my way back to Reno. So I nursed her for 8,000 miles. Thanks to this thread we discovered the rear valve cover PAIR O-ring was damaged and displaced. This took 5 months to figure out as I wasn’t going to permit an exploratory tear down. There just wasn’t enough info on this kind of failure in the 2013 vfr1200f. THANKS PEOPLE!

5610B27B-57E7-47E0-BD7E-62CA49653663.jpeg

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Just seen this and wondered about the final outcome. I cannot now remember the cam cover to head seal on the VFR1200, but I do remember many years ago after a service on an RVT1000 (RC51 / SP-1) when I noticed it smoking on the overrun. As has been mentioned above, it was a missing PAIR oil seal. Allows oil to get sucked into the exhaust although I don't recall any oil leaking out of the engine. Once I took the cam cover off I could spot that the seal was missing and once replaced and all back together, no more problem.

 

So that sounds like the exact same problem.

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3 hours ago, BiKenG said:

Just seen this and wondered about the final outcome. I cannot now remember the cam cover to head seal on the VFR1200, but I do remember many years ago after a service on an RVT1000 (RC51 / SP-1) when I noticed it smoking on the overrun. As has been mentioned above, it was a missing PAIR oil seal. Allows oil to get sucked into the exhaust although I don't recall any oil leaking out of the engine. Once I took the cam cover off I could spot that the seal was missing and once replaced and all back together, no more problem.

 

So that sounds like the exact same problem.

OP never posted about what he found, though the thread title seems to have changed. @HispanicSlammer, did you find the cause?

 

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On 7/10/2018 at 6:10 AM, swimmer said:

OP never posted about what he found, though the thread title seems to have changed. @HispanicSlammer, did you find the cause?

 

Not conclusively I am pretty sure its a damaged pair system oring like stated in the thread before.  I am not burning oil at a significant rate, my oil level is the same day after day. I will look into it when I do the next service interval. 

 

 

Update I did a valve clearance  check, rear cylinder head oring was missing. Replaced it finished the valve check, put it back together. Not smoking anymore. !!

 

Thanks for the help in identifying the root cause. 

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