How many miles has it done / how old is the bike? If you shine a torch along the gasket line, is there a wet oil smear all the way along it, or is it just a small weep from one point? Is there much oil?

It's most likely to be from the gasket around the camchain tunnel. You could try torquing the head down (don't loosen the bolts and re-tighten, just use a torque wrench to try and tighten them to the specified torque setting).

If that doesn't have an effect, and if the leak is just a small weep, don't worry about it ... just keep an eye and if it gets worse or starts blowing / losing compression, then sort it.

She's a middle-aged lady, she's entitled to have the odd leak here and there ;-)

My 10 pence worth is, just try tightening the head bolts up to spec (as above) and seeing if that cures it. It sounds like it could easily wait until the next service, 'cos then you'd have the cam covers off to check the valve clearances anyway, so you'd have easy access to all the head bolts.

Or just keep an eye on it. It could run for another 11 years quite happily and still have that slight oil weep.

If it gets much worse, then lifting the head, a new gasket etc should sort it. But that means you spending a day in the garage and £50+ on a gasket set ... or paying a dealer a day's labour plus parts.

Got one of these rather fast old buses too. Mine is 6 years and 21k . Have you had it serviced recently? Easy to trap the lower spark plug gaskets (located under rocker cover) if so it will leak oil close to where you describe. Oil spreads fast when hot making tracing the source quite difficult. So clean the engine up, apply a bit of talc and take for a run to see if it still leaks and from where. Be aware that Bandit oil coolers with time can develop leaks from the hose connections. Also possible leak from pulse generator gasket. Don't worry unduly - the Bandit engine is ultra reliable , time tested and very very under-stressed, they rev to 11k but in real world riding you don't really have to go past 5-6k. Even riding at 4k in each gear means serious drive. Couriers in London regularly run up huge mileages of 100+K . Best to post your query with pics on a specific site such as www.banditforum.co.uk, some good chaps on there...

Edited by Chrome on 09/06/2010 at 20:40