I dropped the bash plate and cleaned it before today's leisurely 100 mile ride. This is what I found afterwards, is this normal or is the balance shaft seal going bad? Any help is mucho appreciated.
Balancer shaft seal is internal,,, won't show up as an external oil leak. Possible causes..... gear shift sensor o-ring, drain plug, oil filter cover, oil lines where they connect to the case, oil pressure sensor, clutch push rod seal, counter shaft seal,,,, etc.
That was the good news,,,,, holding off on the bad news for now. I'm actually intrigued that someone would clean inside the skid plate before going for a ride!
Doesn't everyone clean their bash plate before riding? It looks like the oil is coming from the breather tube so that's why I'm looking for some advice.
That tube in the pic looks too small in diameter to be the air box drain. If that is the drain tube then yes its possible the balancer shaft seal has failed. But it also looks like there is oil residue on the oil lines too.
Looks a lot like mine before I replaced the gear shift sensor O ring. Very common problem on 990's. I order them by the half dozen and replace them every time I do the oil. 'Cause the oil change isn't a big enough PITA.
My 950 would blow oil out the breather tube after extended (more than an hour) freeway jaunts at a steady 70+ mph. Never happened on shorter rides or rides with varying speeds. I was told that the seal inside the ignition cover (forget the name) fails and causes that. I don't have an airbox anymore and I'd get a slight amount of oil on my right boot. You can always route the tube over your chain and then you could consider this a feature vs a defect.
My gearshift sensor was actually cracked across the back so finely that I really couldn't see it. Two orings later with no improvement, I repotted it with JB weld, and the leak is gone. If your balance shaft seal goes, the blowby will be extreme, and it's generally worst at 65+mph constant cruising. When mine went around 60k miles, it was so bad I thought I had cracked the case in a wreck or something.
Thanks for everyone's help. I'll probably wait and replace both the balancer shaft seal and the gear shift sensor at the next (1st for me) oil change. I've only put 2k miles on the new to me bike. The coolant overflow tank was about a 1/2" over filled so I don't know if that has any bearing on this situation. Anyway, thanks again.
I think you need to figure out exactly where the fluid is coming from, and what it is... that small hose in your pic looks like it might be the fuel pump drain or something, which shouldn't be routed there anyway. I don't have any hoses down in the skid plate like that. Probably worth tracing it back to see where it goes.