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Bottom crankcase cover leak on XS400


plain old dave
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The Bike: 1978 XS400E. Tried to drop the strainer cover on the bottom of the crankcase today, came off fine, and even went back on fine. I used a new gasket as I always do on any old vehicle. Tightened the thing what I thought was good and tight, put the 2 1/4 quarts of oil in to account for the new filter and no matter how tight I tighten them little bolts it won't stop leaking. I thought they just weren't tight enough, so I tightened more. Then one of them snapped off AND IT'S STILL LEAKING. Now I only have 4 of the 6 bolts I can use, though I am going to see tomorrow if the empty hole that's been there since I got the bike has a potmetal Jap bolt half in it or if it's got good threads. What have I missed? I saw there was an arrow on the cover and can't remember for the life of me if it was pointing toward the front or the back of the bike, or does that even matter? I need help as this bike is how I get to work and I have to get back to work Thursday.

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The Bike: 1978 XS400E. Tried to drop the strainer cover on the bottom of the crankcase today, came off fine, and even went back on fine. I used a new gasket as I always do on any old vehicle. Tightened the thing what I thought was good and tight, put the 2 1/4 quarts of oil in to account for the new filter and no matter how tight I tighten them little bolts it won't stop leaking. I thought they just weren't tight enough, so I tightened more. Then one of them snapped off AND IT'S STILL LEAKING. Now I only have 4 of the 6 bolts I can use, though I am going to see tomorrow if the empty hole that's been there since I got the bike has a potmetal Jap bolt half in it or if it's got good threads. What have I missed? I saw there was an arrow on the cover and can't remember for the life of me if it was pointing toward the front or the back of the bike, or does that even matter? I need help as this bike is how I get to work and I have to get back to work Thursday.

Bummer...

Mine has the arrow pointed to the front. When you tighten the bolts, do it in a pattern, so that you are going across the cover for the next bolt to tighten a bit more (like you do on car wheel nuts or engine head bolts.)

Good luck with that..it's fixable, but finicky.....

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Oh dear, the bolt torque on them is very low, I used a torque wrench on mine. The bolt may be broken but since there is no flame or rust on the threads you should be able to remove the broken bolt. if the threads are yanked from the case you have to tap it to the next size, mark the larger bolt by painting the head, and you should be OK.

Get a torque wrench and follow the specifications,

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Yep. arrow forward and torqued to 7lbs ft ( 10 nm) in cross pattern.

mines never leaked there ( elswhere is a differnt story :lol:)

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