milky tranny fluid

[blitz11]

Along those lines, a cheap test would be to get the blender (or another emulsifier), add a bit of water to the oil, and then spin it up. Let the mix sit for a while, then look at the color. The human eye is quite good, and by slowly adding water until the colors match, you can determine how much water did get in.

Just be careful that the missus doesn't catch you blending gear oil & water cocktails in her blender.

 

[eff]

Along those lines, a cheap test would be to get the blender (or another emulsifier), add a bit of water to the oil, and then spin it up. Let the mix sit for a while, then look at the color. The human eye is quite good, and by slowly adding water until the colors match, you can determine how much water did get in.

Just be careful that the missus doesn't catch you blending gear oil & water cocktails in her blender.

or just tell her they are mudslides and RUUNNNNNNN.

 

[skid jackson]

still chasing this issue ... did an enduro saturday and then a turkey run on sunday probably about 150 miles between them .. mostly dry but some big puddles along the way. rad fluid doesn't seem to have changed. Now i'm back to thinking it is coming from the outside. I rode the bike a few times befoer and the oil did not go all milky too fast. just kind of had a slow fade thing going on. After this weekend thought it was definitely milky. I need to change out my front sprocket, the bike is still running the original sprocket shaft seal. If water was getting in through the seal wouldn't it also be leaking oil out. No sign of oil coming out. How about a list of all the ways water can get into the tranny from out side the motor?? I checked the two vent lines and they were tight where they screw into the motor. the right side one was run up by the head stock and turned down. Must have forgot to run it back to the airbox after putting it back together this winter. gonna run that back to the airbox again. at this point I'm getting ready to pull the top end and side cover and do another water pump seal. Gotta get this sorted.

 

[skid jackson]

here is a pic of the front sprocket

you can notice it seems kind of oily around the shaft. could that be a slight leak?? I'm inclined to believe it is just oily gunk as i lube my chain with gear oil. (got lots of it hanging around) however every thing else in the pic seems pretty dry. why is the center of the shaft looking oily??

 

[Rick]

Is it wet behind the sprocket? Oil is moving down the spinning shaft, that is what mine did after I rode through a wetlands area in a race and wrapped grass all with ion the c/s area. It looked like that, but I had some oil behind the sprocket, but no water in the tranny oil.

 

[GMP]

There is an o-ring that goes on the countershaft before the sleeve and seals the sleeve to the bearing inner race. If this is bad you will leak oil between the sleeve and shaft, not the sleeve and seal, as appears in your photo. Notice no oil is present on the cases. If you didn't do any water crossings I find it hard to beleive this is your problem though.

How milky is the oil, got a pic? It doesn't take much water to make oil milky looking. From running Rotella for years I can tell you its like any other oil, turns a charcoal grey/black color when dirty, and most of that is from spooge fouling the oil through PV rod passage for the common vent. I'm wondering if you do indeed have a small internal leak, like the gasket I mentioned or a porous casting. You could be pushing water vapor through that condenses in the transmission and fouls the oil over time. Ideally you should do a leak down test of the cooling system. You could try and run a waterless coolant for a ride, that won't vaporize, operates at low pressure, and see if the problem disappears. If your sure everything else is in good shape, your vents are tight and routed properly, and your running out of ideas, I'd give this a try.

For the newer bikes with the gas cap vent nipple in the frame, a bulletproof way to vent the trans is to use that nipple and run a shorty gas cap vent hose.

 

[tias240(sweden)]

Check the slavecylinder(?) for the clutch. If its leaking, oil will be milky. That was a problem for me an some of my friends. It can also leak in water that way.

 

[skid jackson]

tias
What exactly did you find wrong with the clutch slave cyclinder?? On the parts fiche it looks like all there is, is an o ring .... did the o ring fail??

 

[tias240(sweden)]

tias
What exactly did you find wrong with the clutch slave cyclinder?? On the parts fiche it looks like all there is, is an o ring .... did the o ring fail??

yes it did.

 

[skid jackson]

going to give the water pump seal another shot
trying to think what I might have screwed up that could cause an improper install. I've dealt with these ceramic water pump seals on pumps at work so they are not foreign to me. part number 34 is a washer ..iirc this goes on the impeller side of the side case between the side case and the black rubber thing that holds the white life saver thing. correct. all this stuff goes into place dry ...i.e. no grease or silicone sealant or anything else correct? pretty simple install ... just make sure not to touch the wear surfaces on the new seals ... anything else

http://www.gofasters.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65_284_297

 

[skid jackson]

Shoot my bike please .....

drain tranny fluid and notice its kind of milky.... october 2008

replace water pump seal check
go ride
milky tranny fluid
replace top end orings and check cyclinder bolt torque,
replace sidecase gasket check
go ride
milky tranny fluid
replace counter sprocket seal
and oring to clutch slave cyclinder ... check
go ride
milky tranny fluid
double check vent lines, check for cracks, make sure they are tight to motor,
run to air box, replace kick starter seal ..... check
go ride
milky tranny fluid
replace water pump seal a second time being extra careful
not to touch it!! check impellar shaft for smoothness, eyeball engine cases w/flash light for some way water could get inside tranny, find nothing ..... check
go ride
milky tranny fluid.

all the seals and gaskets that have been replaced have looked fine.
did not check rad fluid last time out, (today, very wet ride). the times i have checked it before and after there appeared to be no apprieciable loss. was checked w/a machinist rule.

My two guesses are water from outside the motor or rad fluid. How about something weird ...Possible exhaust gasses getting into tranny some how??
bike runs great.
How about mineral fluid getting in through the slave cyclinder. I only replaced the outer o ring. I did not do anything with the o rings that go on the plunger disc.

haven't opened up the ignition cover lately, no way it could get in from there is it??


some pics this from an oil change in june. the cup sat on my bench for like 2 months eventually all the grayish stuff ended up on the bottom of the cup about 1/2" thick while the stuff on top looked like nice clean oil. ration was about 2/3/to 3/4 nice stuff 1/3 to 1/4 grunge on bottom. If you let the stuff sit it kind of rotates, very slowly and sutlely (sort of like eutrification in a pond!)from top to bottom and eventually settles out.

 

[iancp5]

If you're not losing water from the rad it must be from outside. You might be able to confirm it's water by heating the oil to close to 100 deg C and seeing if it'll steam a mirror or something similar. Maybe you have to take the motor out, clean it and have a good inspection?

The other thing to consider is it can take a lot of drains to clear it. I once had a trials bike that I bought cheap on eBay and it had similar tranny fluid. The bike had been sat in a shed unused for some time. It took about 5 flushes to get rid of it and then it was fine. I have no idea how the water got in because it was never a problem again even when ridden through streams. So you may have solved the problem but it hasn't all been removed yet so every time you use it, whatever is left gets stirred up again.

 

[blitz11]

I just went through this with my kid's KTM 200.

To make a long story short, there was a porosity in the casting between the water jacket and the power valve chamber. When the bike was running and the system was pressurized, the coolant would blow into the power valve chamber, and then run down into the transmission through that cavity.

It took a while to diagnose. We bought the bike from a friend who we know and is a good mechanic, so my first thought was bad head o-ring. when i pulled the top end, it looked fine. So, I pulled the cylinder and when I looked, found a torn base gasket between cooling jacket and power valve cavity.

Ah ha!

Wrong.

I must have torn it pulling it off of the cases.

Put it back together, same problem. I had to travel that week, so I thought buy water pump gaskets/seals, and replace those on my arrival home. Did that.

Wrong again.

So, guessing didn't work, so I built a rig to allow me to pressurize the cylinder, and when I dunked it, i found the pin-hole leak. I jb welded it, and we've ridden the bike now 100 miles, and it uses no coolant and the trans oil (after 5 flushes) is clear.

These aren't always easy to find (this took me a few hours), but my guess is you might have a bad base gasket, head gasket, or porous casting.

Good luck.

blitz

 

[GMP]

When you pulled the primary cover to replace the kickstarter shaft seal, did you inspect the surfaces with a straight edge? There are two coolant passages sealed by that gasket. If not I would do this, and replace the gasket, using a gasket sealer with it.

Like I mentioned before, the o-ring behind the countershaft sleeve, although this is usually detected by oil seepage between the shaft and sleeve. Still, its easy and cheap.

Spooge and exhaust gases absolutely get into the oil through the right side PV vent that is shared with the trans. This will also allow water in if not routed correctly, but I think this is the first thing you did right? Check/loctite the fitting to the cylinder to seal the threads.

Not sure what the clutch fluid would do when mixed with the oil, depends on what you run. I know in mine I run hydraulic jack oil or fork oil so I doubt it would turn the trans milky. This should be easy to detect by checking your clutch fluid level.

The ignition side has no influence, but the cover should come off regularly or you will have a big mess in there.

Other than that, I would suspect a porous casting like blitz had on the KTM. Time for a pressure test.

 

[skid jackson]

So, I pulled the cylinder and when I looked, found a torn base gasket between cooling jacket and power valve cavity.

blitz

hmmmm
when you pull the right side power valve cover you can see how the bottom half of the cavity is cleaner than the top half. I figures that was the milky fluid getting splashed up into the cavity from below. I believe that cylinder bolt was checked for torque before .. when I put the bike back together I used a wrench on the bolt and the other end fit nicely into my torque wrench. I got some instructions off the motion pro site on how to calculate torque values when using such and extension ..... sounds like alot could go wrong in that little spot don't it??

went digging and found some pics of that area ....

you can see the milky fluid stting on the bottom of the side case in the second pic

 

[blitz11]

It was my "splash into the cavity" theory which led me to purchase the water pump parts. That and a lack of time because I was away from home.


You don't have much of a path for fluid to "splash up." Your clean PV cavity might be a sign of where that leak is.

It took me 20 minutes to get the top end off of my kid's KTM. I'd pull the top end and look around. Cheap and easy.

Good luck.

blitz.

 

[GMP]

The top half is dirty because the exhaust gas leaks through the bearing there.

Whats a possible clue is the cases are wet next to the two coolant passages in the 2nd photo. Is this just from spillage/handling during disassenbly or was it like this? If it was leaking outside slightly, perhaps its leaking inside as well.

 

[skid jackson]

the spillage next to the "water pipes" is just me being sloppy.I've been around that motor so many times looking for weeps I feel like dog chasing its tail. I checked the torque on that bolt inside the pv cover and it is fine. My opinion of the water coming from inside or outside the motor keeps going back and forth. for the amount of crap that comes out in the fluid I would think the change in level in the rads would be rather obvious. I've done everything else ... guess I should pull the head

some more pics for your viewing pleasure.

you can see a fluid bubble in the bottom of the pv area
thats 800 to 900 ml of rottela after have sat for two weeks.
how many onces of rad fluid do you think it would take to to create all that gray matter??

 

[skid jackson]

another pic ...
splash pattern on back side of the pv cover

 

[PEB]

I wash my bike to just shy of sterile after almost every ride and have never had any water get into the transmission. My bike has also had a leak around the couter shaft for some tiem but oil only comes out, water doesn't get in. I would suspect side cover gasket like GMP said or possibly the center case gasket.