Oil leak from transmission fixes?

[jos velthoven]

Would I be able to do this with the motor assembly on the bike or would I have to remove the whole unit?  Is there a gasket you can replace to fix this or the liquid gasket is the only way?

Answer: You can leave the motor where it is. Just unscrew the bolt and put soms liquid gasket in it and put back in the bolt. It probably is a leak in the liquid gasket inside. See photo.  there is no real paper gasket inside. I have put the lith several times on and off, and i use the blue liquid gasket from locktite. See photo.
On this side of the motor there's normally no oil. If there's a leakage from the transmission oil you should see that on the bottom of the motor, between the motor and the casing where the motor fits in the bike.
If you do see oil on this side of the motor than it has come through the motor and you would not be able to drive...

[jos velthoven]

see photo

[Leander]

if it is the bolt.
if not the o-ring is done, the rubber is not the right sort for the coolant.
replacement is not too difficult and you can leave the position sensor in place.

[HadesOmega]

Ah ic the bolt is what is actually causing the leak problem, it putting too much pressure on the gasket compared to other places.

Do I have to drain the coolant to get to this?  Does it just start gushing out?

[siai47]

If you need to drain the coolant (which you will as the bolt you think is problem is a drain bolt) than you must purge the cooling system when you refill it.  There is another bolt on the top of the motor housing directly above the drain bolt.  That needs to be removed as well as the radiator cap.  Once you have repaired the "leak" then you need to refill the system with a 50/50 antifreeze and glycol mix.  You add water to the system until the coolant starts to run out of the upper bolt.  This is a vent for the motor housing.  Re-install that bolt and continue to fill the system via the radiator cap until it is full to the top.  At this point you have to remove the water pump relay from the low voltage fuse box.  It is relay #2.  I don't know if they are numbered but in the low voltage fuse box there are 4 relays and 8 fuses.  In the high voltage side of the fuse box there is only 1 relay.  Relay #2 (water pump relay) in the low voltage box is directly opposite the #1 relay (the only one) in the high voltage side of the box.  After removing the relay you need to jump the pins in the box with a couple of spade connectors and a jumper wire.  The relay should show what the pins do and you want to jump the two contact pins for the relay, not the coil pins.  With the Key on and the bike in the ready position, you should be able to operate the coolant pump by putting the jumper in.  You need to cycle the pump a few times until the coolant level in the standpipe stabilizes.  Do not fill the standpipe all the way up as that is the only expansion tank in the system.  The level should be a couple of inches below the radiator cap.  At that point all that is left to do is to put the various cover bits and pieces back on and go out for a test ride.

Note: When full the coolant system holds approx one liter of coolant.  The radiator cap is located behind and below the front frame headstock.

[HadesOmega]

ok thanks siai47 for the detailed info.  I knew from the manual but it helps confirm what to do.  I'll try and make a video about it when I do it, for now it's a small leak so I will wait till it gets worse.  Any particular coolant I should use?  I was planning to replace it with prestone 50/50 (the green bright green stuff) when I was going to replace it.

[siai47]

What coolant to use is a good question.  Just about anything that likes to work in aluminum is a good start.  The green coolants are usually shorter life coolants with the long life coolants usually orange or red.  Whatever you use (unless you flush the system) must be compatible with what is in there now.  You could easily flush the system with water before you refill.

There is a whole new range of coolants out there for use in electric vehicle powertrain cooling systems.  These use different things like de-ionized water and non conductive chemicals to provide increased electrical resistance if the coolant comes in contact with the High Voltage system.   With the Parker motor design which brings the coolant into close contact with the motor windings this type of coolant might be one to consider.  You are only buying a gallon of it and using a quart so the higher price of the premium coolant shouldn't be a factor.

[HadesOmega]

So here's an update on this.  I recently removed the black plastic cover for the motor.  I figured out you can pry the tabs off with a screw driver or trim removal tool if you pry inward of the cover.  I found out that it is not leaking from that bolt instead something is leaking from within the cover.  The whole inside of the cover is wet with coolant.  The coolant is normally green but when it drips from this cover it is contaminated with rust so that's why it has the orange color.  I made a seperate post about my motor temps not working properly and I believe it has something to do with this.



Everything inside the cover has coolant over it.  There's no where for it to go because the cover has a gasket around it.  Some of it manages to weep out of the bottom of the cover, I guess that's where it's collecting.





The motor leads underneath this cover are all corroded


The encoder is has some surface corrosion as do the bolts that hold the rear of the black plastic cover on.  So as long as I don't mess with the position of this do hickey I should be fine.


All the wiring is wet.  I believe the black and red wire are the motor temp thermistor wires.  So I'm thinking its all wet at the connector so it's probably shorting them.



Sooooo the good thing is that it doesn't look like it's leaking from the cooling jacket cover.  The leak is inside the cover some how and it's hard to tell where it's coming from because everything is wet in there.  It looks like there was a sauna in there and coolant just condensate everywhere.  So I think for the mean time I will do my best to clean up the coolant and corrosion.  I'll spray some contact cleaner to flush out the coolant and dry everything.  Clean the thermistor connector.  It might be a good idea to put some tape around the connector to keep moisture out.  Hopefully this will cure my motor temp indicator problem.  I'll unbolt the motor leads and clean all the corrosion/deposits on everything.  Then put the cover back on.  Ride it for a bit and then remove the cover and attempt to see where the leak is coming from.  Anyone have this problem?  Ahh the joys of having a watercooled motor...

I also have a B9 system fault that is on all the time now.  It has gradually gotten worse over time from intermittent to always on.  It might be related to this also, since it has to deal with moisture and it's definitely moist in there.

[HadesOmega]

Cleaned up all the corrosion and coolant inside the cover.  Was kinda hard to get out, the best way to get the coolant out is good ol water.  I sprayed some water and inside there and wiped off.  Next time I thought of using a steam cleaner to get the coolant out and it would dry much faster.



If looks much better than before.  You can see that the you can read the grade of the the bolts now.



More cleaning.  I think the coolant might be coming from the orifice where the wires are going in to.  You can make out of silicone gasket  in there.



Encoder nice and clean.  So I'm looking at this thing and it looks like you can remove this without losing the timing.  There are 2 adjustments you can do to it.  The plate has a eliptical holes for the bolt to slide it around.  Then there is another part that has teeth.  If you took the encoder out and and placed it back in the same tooth section would it still function?  Let me know if anyone has tried this.

[HadesOmega]

So I took the bike for a 10 mile ride on the freeway and it was overheating.  It puked out some coolant from the overflow port.  The thermistor is still not operating properly.  I was hoping once I cleaned and dried everything it would work.  But it would go from -30F to no more than 70F.  That was not warm enough to kick the water pump on   So I wound up riding back a slower route to try to keep the heat down.  The coolant housing was so hot like you just got off a racetrack hot and the hose was not hot.


So here's what the gauge cluster is reading 51F the coolant housing is about 120F.



I pulled off the side cover and was surprised to find a lot of water everywhere again.  The interesting thing about this water is it was just water mostly.  It was CLEAR.  This leads me to believe that perhaps there is some whater in that orifice still that I couldn't get out or I sprayed some water in there and couldn't get it out.  The good thing is I haven't seen it leak from anywhere.  My guess is it gets so hot inside this cover that it becomes a sauna in there and there's nowhere for the water to really go so it just stays in there in droplets.




For the most part the stuff inside the cover is not that wet, not as wet as it was before.


I mentioned it on my other post of about the faulty motor temp sensor, but I found out that if you unplug the thermistor it will think the bike is too hot and turn the pump on.  So by doing this I can keep my bike from overheating by just having the pump turn on whenever the bike is switched on.  I won't get an overtemp warning also because when the gauge cluster reads 390F it stops complaining.





So I'll try and take the bike out again.  Least i don't have to worry about it overheating anymore.  I will dry everything and pop the cover off again after the ride and try to find out where it's leaking.  I'm thinking maybe I should just drill a hole on the top and bottom of the cover so it has a vent and a drainage hole.

[Leander]

No need to take off the hal motor sensor when removing the motor.

[HadesOmega]

Been riding the bike for about a week and it's doing well.  I take the cover off everytime I get back home and check for condensation.  The condensation is definitely situated where the wires are going into the motor as seen in this picture.



What I have opted to do is leave the cover slightly ajar.  The top part of the cover I don't fasten completely so it is a little open on top but the bottom is fastened all the way.  I rode with it like that and no problems.  What I might do is just take the gasket off.  This will help vent the condensation.  Definitely no more leaks coming from the bottom of the motor like before.  I just have to keep an eye on the condensation so everything doesn't start corroding/oxidizing again. 

Also no problem riding with the motor temp sensor disconnected, the pump just runs all the time and the motor cools nicely =)

[stig]

HadesOmega,

I'm a new Empulse TT owner and have checked out your videos.  Thanks!!!! 

So, I've been following this thread which led me to take off the motor cover and it looks exactly like yours with corroded bolts and condensate.  Looks to be just water.  I replaced the bolts with M8x1.00x16mm bolts with M8 washers from Lowes, which are identical to the old ones (same grade and length). The connections looked good but I cleaned them with my dremel anyway and coated the contact surfaces with dielectric grease.  Then bolted it up, but I haven't run it yet due to the weather -  lotsa thunderstorms here for the next several days.

Do you have any updates on your situation?

[HadesOmega]

Wow so I'm not the only one.  Seems like if Victory was still selling these bikes this might've been a recall issue.

I have been riding the bike and it runs great.  After a couple rides I will pop the cover off and hose it off with water and clean any moisture I see in there.  Maybe i will paint the bolt heads so they don't start corroding.  I feel like if I keep popping the cover off it's going to break eventually O_o'  and I don't know where you can buy these covers.

Oh yeah I also took the cover gasket off also to help it vent a bit.

[jos velthoven]

Hello Karel,

You ask for some photo's of the inside of the lith of the motor. I will place them on this page.