stubbs

Still dry and clean. Chalking it up to a learning experience -- don't overfill oil (which I never did) and drain excess ASAP (which I didn't), fortunately with little consequence beyond making me get the front of this engine cleaner than it's been in the past decade. 🙂

my syringe was too small to suck enough volume through the tubing I had, so I just pulled the drain plug for a few seconds to get the level down to where it should be. Didn't leak after a 15 mile ride yesterday even overfilled, so I'm hoping it'll stay tight and dry at the right level now. I did run it particularly hard on the day it wound up leaking in the garage, so maybe hitting the rev limiter with the sump too full is what did it.

Brilliant. I didn't think of that, but I've got a pack of syringes in my garage already that'll work just fine!

Definitely was overfilled. I'll drain and refill and go from there. It was damp around that sensor for sure.

Update - I had some time to keep working on the bike today. Started and ran it for a bit, didn’t see oil coming out of anything. Then I spent a while degreasing the whole lower front of the engine and washed it off. Got it reasonably clean, then started the bike back up and let it come up to about 220 degrees to dry. Guess what, no visible leak! So I’m stumped at what was leaking enough to puddle on the floor when I can’t see any oil on the front of the engine now. The oil cooler lines look good, no rust or significant corrosion, but were slightly weepy where the hard line meets the flex fitting on the right side of the block. The oil filter looked pretty dry all around its seal, so I think that’s safe too. Now, I just bought this bike back from the guy I sold it to a couple of years ago. The oil level is currently a bit above the “full” mark — there’s not an overflow mechanism, is there?

Thanks guys, all super helpful ideas! I'll let you know what I find.

Rode my '99 (50k miles on it) home from work on Monday and discovered it was dripping oil on the garage floor immediately. Left a puddle maybe 1/4-quart size on the floor overnight! I pulled the fairings and gas tank off last night knowing that the rear valve cover gasket has been slightly weeping for a while now, but that didn't look like the cause. Probably long overdue for a valve adjustment anyway so I plan on pulling it all apart. When I got the fairings off I discovered that something had been *spraying* oil somewhere below the front head exhaust outlets. The lower coolant hose was wet, the insides of the lower fairings were wet, and the starter is soaked. It's wet enough that my only worry is if I just start cleaning it off I won't be able to see where the leak is coming from, but I also can't pinpoint anything now. The front valve cover gasket is still fairly clean and most of the oil was below the head, so I don't think it's the valve cover. Any ideas, and has anybody seen a leak like this? I'll keep pulling it apart to see what I find. Also looks like my coolant bottle has overflowed or leaked before. 😢 Thanks in advance for any help!