v11 Burning oil?

[ozzydog]

Hello again, well sorry to be posting once again about my problems but would really like to ask you for your advise on this please. I have a scura with 24,000 miles on it. I went for a run last weekend with some mates and afterwards one of them mentioned that when I accelerated it was blowing a lot of puffs of blue smoke out of the lefthand pipe. It dosen't smoke when idling and I don't want to panic but have had the bike in bits today as had to fit another rear shock as the Ohlins clapped out. I found the airbox has rather a lot of oil in it on the left side and also what looks like milk? is this water mixed with the oil? This milky stuff is only around the breather hose at the top and on the right side of the filter box. I Have checked the oil level and its a tiny bit down but not that much at all really. I don't know why/what should make this happen and have tried using the search button but can't quite find the same thing. I pulled the plugs and they both look rather on the rich side but the left side has a lot of carbon and is very wet with oil, other than the above the bike does not feel down on power and seems to be running well ( for now at least ) I understand from what I've read on here that some V11's might have a tendancy to eat valves and guides at fairly low mileage, could this be my problem or am I jumping the gun? I have a long ride coming up next weekend and don't know if I should just clean up the airbox and plugs and go or if this needs further investigation. I would be very grateful for any advise, many thanks for your help

 

Heather

[raz]

Oil in the airbox is usually leftovers from a too high oil level at some point in time, which was vented into the airbox. The milk is oil too, with water in it. It's probably just that. Either just ride it, or if you like you can dismount the airbox and clean it out.

[GuzziMoto]

Burning oil is usually the result of one of three things. Either the rings are toast, the valves and guides are toast, or the sump was over filled. Oil in the airbox is usually from the rings or overfilling. A leak down test or compression test should let you know the state of your rings. A leakdown test is better but a compression test is easier. You may have valve/guide issues but what your describing is not symptomatic of valves/guides.

It is worth pointing out that oil in the airbox is unusual, in my opinion, for a spine frame bike because the frame acts as an oil separator and should remove most of the oil from the air coming out the vent before it reaches the airbox. I have never had that happen to me but I only have two spine frames, hardly a cross section. But the mechanics of the vent system should work well as long as you don't mess with it. I say that but I did "mess" with mine recently on one of my bikes. But I did that for two reasons and if I can come up with a way to make it work as designed again I will. I wanted a one way valve in the vent and I had an oil leak and was not sure where it was coming from so I wanted to remove all suspects.

One last thing, the puffs of smoke your buddies report. Is it possible that is was fuel smoke from being too rich and not oil smoke? It is not uncommon for a Guzzi to smoke a little from being to rich at full throttle. The factory fuel settings are lean at lower revs/part throttle and rich at higher revs/full throttle. The smoke is black, not blue. But it would be an easy mistake to make.