That pesky O ring

[rw1968]

Yes - you know the one.
I've had bother with an (admittedly very small) oil leak since I bought the bike 15 years ago (2000 curvy).
Because I am such a cheapskate I refuse to pay £30 or whatever Suzuki want for a new one so I never bothered to fix it.
Having had to replace the clutch springs, however, the leak just got a little bit worse so I decided to to have a go at a proper fix.
I think that the problem is that the gland in the piece of plastic isn't correctly designed. My view is that the gland is the right width for the OEM O ring, but it's too deep.
Given what I know about O ring design (which isn't nothing - but I'm not an expert) I thought I'd try an off the shelf one instead of the genuine.
Starting with nitrile rubber I reckon that the closest standard-ish size is 160mm ID, 2.5mm cross sectional diameter.
These are available from Polymax at 66p each. Also available in Viton or EPDM - so Viton might be a better bet due to it's temperature range.


I fitted one a few days ago and not a single drip since.


Anyone got any opinions or thoughts?

[garynortheast]

Glad you got the leak sorted. I can't really comment on it as I've never had the problem on my curvy, but your comments on material and sizing are definitely worth noting for the future.

[admin]

I've got a large box of assorted O rings that I bought to fix a leaky Miro shower. None of them seemed to fix the leak so I can only guess that Miro used a very bespoke size. So you did well in this case.

[rw1968]

Thanks for your replies - I have always found Polymax to be pretty good - their range of sizes is extensive, so as long as you know what size you need they will likely have it.
Because the gland size doesn't seem to fit any standardized design that I am aware of, I was a good couple of hours doing sums to work out which size to get, and - being completely honest - I got it wrong first time. 160mm Id and 2.5mm CS seems to do the trick.

[garynortheast]

I see you're selling the SV then RW. Are you giving up riding or just getting something else?

[rw1968]

Yep - time for it to go. I'm just not going to use it as much in the future so it's better that it goes to someone who will ride it.
I have to add - of all the bikes I've owned (which is quite a few over the years) the SV is probably my favourite. I'll never rule out getting another - but bikes in general are pretty rubbish for carrying my drums & PA around and that's my priority at the minute. It's been a great ride for a decade - time to let someone else have a go on it now.