Hitchcocks Forum

I replaced my stock breathing system with duck bill. All I did was removed the whole assembly(pipe, battery cover which holds the catch) and put the DuckBill and route it straight to the top of chain (tapered end)

Now I see lot of oil leaking from distributor (shown in picture below).
I don't understand why would this leak all of sudden. I have never seen any oil leak from it since I bought it 6 months ago.

I did tilted the bike all the way right and left while I dropped a screw in the engine and was trying to get that out. Would this cause the oil leak? I was wondering if tilting the bike like that moved oil from one place to another and hence this leak?

http://www.enfieldmotorcycles.com/forum ... 7632;image

Has anyone ever seen a leak from distributor? If yes, what is the reason for it?

Girish
The distributor has 2 bearings (or older ones with bushes), one at each end. The one at the timing chest side, which in your case may be a ball race (because of the apparent lack of grease nipple in your image) is not sealed so oil will get splashed into the shaft housing during normal use.
But you may have filled that housing during the tilting or if you’ve badly overfilled the oil tank. It will eventually drain out. You could remove the distributor and empty it – but you’ll need a new gasket (they tear easily) and you'll probably need a puller too (it’s a special one, available from our hosts).
If the oil doesn’t drain out where it now drips, it will almost certainly get into the points chamber but that’s rarely a problem (mine also weeps a little oil into the points chamber through the correctly fitted seal, but it always drips out and hasn’t yet affected the points.
Cheers, ChrisD

Could it be that the engine is no longer adequately vented, and some pressure is building up inside which is forcing the oil to leak at the distributor? Just a guess.

check that the end of the duckbill opens when you squeeze (or poke) it.



If there was a manufacturing error, it could be obstructed or even sealed.



(just one more thing to try)

If I put my finger at that the tapered end of DuckBill and I do feel little air suction when engine is running but there is no trace of drain coming out of it so far. Its been on motorcycle for 3 days now. So Thack, you may be right. Either its duckbill or tilting the bike that is causing this issue . Can I buy some other pipe to replace duckbill and see if it helps? Hitchcocks sells something like that?

Thanks,
Girish

Sorry for type errors in previous response. Corrected response below:

If I put my finger at the tapered end of DuckBill, I do feel little air suction when engine is running but there is no trace of drain coming out of it so far. Its been on motorcycle for 3 days now.
So Thack, you may be right. Either its duckbill or tilting the bike that is causing this issue because it started leaking right after I changed old breather system with duck and titlting happened the same day too.

Can I buy some other pipe to replace duckbill with something else and see if it helps? Hitchcocks sells something like that?

Thanks, Girish

You have sealed off the drain to the back of the timing chest? Looks like it might be blowing from there onto the distributor.

No I didn't! where exactly is this drain?

There was a pipe from the catch can to a spigot at the back of the timing chest. The catch can is supposed to drain back through this pipe. If you have removed the drain pipe but not sealed the spigot you will have oil blowing out of there. the spigot is down beside the distributor at the back of the timing chest.