Hey guys !

Did my first oil change on my GS500 2005 today. I thought everything went well until I started to bike and oil started to leak from the oil filter cap...

Anyone has ever had this issue? Could the filter cap not be tight enough or the o-ring badly placed ?

Quote from: max9505672 on April 06, 2014, 02:40:25 PM
Hey guys !

Did my first oil change on my GS500 2005 today. I thought everything went well until I started to bike and oil started to leak from the oil filter cap...

Anyone has ever had this issue? Could the filter cap not be tight enough or the o-ring badly placed ?

Most likely an issue with the o-ring, the nuts don't have to be much more than finger tight for it to seal properly. Possible some gunk got in the o-ring channel as well.

I might have put a little too much oil in there also, possible that the extra oil (if its the case) cause too much oil pressure and a leak because of the high pressure ?

A little too much oil shouldn't cause an increase in pressure, so most likely not.

I've changed oil on my 97 and 02 GSs every 2-3k miles for 180k miles.  Only had one leaker from the filter cap, was an o-ring that got out of place and got pinched.  Don't tighten your cap any more many have broken the studs off doing that.  Take cap off and replace seal if pinched.

A little too much oil never gave me any problem, won't affect oil pressure.  I put in 3 quarts with or without filter change so oil is up to the round part of the dipstick when I fill w/o filter change.  By the way, since that one leaker I had I grab a couple fingers of all purpose grease and stick the o-ring in the groove real good.

Thanks guys ! I felt like the o-ring was badly placed so I took everything off and replaced it.

The only problem is while is I broke a stud trying to tighten a filter cap screw 

I know that's a fairly common problem. I can't get this part quickly from my shop here in Canada. Has anyone ever tried to just srew a M6 bolt in there ?

It should work, but a stud is much preferred -- over tightening on the stud breaks it off, like what happened to you, and simply warrants a replacement. Over tightening a bolt strips the threads out of the metal of the engine block... a much trickier repair.

Finally got that damn screw out of there :



Thanks to my vise grips.

I put a standard hexagonal head M6X1.00 fully threaded bolt in there for now. I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Seems people forget that things with compressible o-ring or rubber gaskets do not need to be bad-ass tight. Oil cover and valve cover being 2 of those things.
We put the oil cover bolts at "snuggy snug".

Here at the West Seattle Bike Cave, we have various terms for tightness:

1. Loose aka "that will fall out"
2. Finger tight
3. Snug
4. Very snug
5. Snuggy Snug (such as the oil filter cover)
6. Tight "You could go more but that would be like work and interfere with beers and pizza time"
7. Pretty tight (engine covers) "OK, that extra 1/4 turn was just right"
8. really tight (like triple clamp and handle bar bolts) the "I see you wincing a little" look
9. Bad ass tight (like an axle bolt) "Any harder and you'll poop your pants"
10. WTF were you thinking when you tightened it that much and now it won't come off?

Quote from: adidasguy on April 07, 2014, 04:25:25 PM
Seems people forget that things with compressible o-ring or rubber gaskets do not need to be bad-ass tight. Oil cover and valve cover being 2 of those things.
We put the oil cover bolts at "snuggy snug".

Here at the West Seattle Bike Cave, we have various terms for tightness:

1. Loose aka "that will fall out"
2. Finger tight
3. Snug
4. Very snug
5. Snuggy Snug (such as the oil filter cover)
6. Tight "You could go more but that would be like work and interfere with beers and pizza time"
7. Pretty tight (engine covers) "OK, that extra 1/4 turn was just right"
8. really tight (like triple clamp and handle bar bolts) the "I see you wincing a little" look
9. Bad ass tight (like an axle bolt) "Any harder and you'll poop your pants"
10. WTF were you thinking when you tightened it that much and now it won't come off?

Level 10 should be used for the oil drain plug, right?


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Quote from: jdoorn14 on April 07, 2014, 06:30:14 PM
Level 10 should be used for the oil drain plug, right?


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11. That would be "WTF were you thinking when you tightened it that much and now it won't come off?" + 10 ft pipe on the end of your wrench.

I made the same mistake during my first oil change. I think I wasted half a quart of highly precious Rotella T6 onto the street.

Try a little dab of old oil in a few corners of the filter cover to get the new gasket to stick, make sure you keep the drain pan under the bike while you test-start it and ALWAYS hang on to your old filter gasket until you're sure you got the new one on right.