milky tranny fluid

Well here is my little store of my water pump seal farce.
After installing my Rekluse auto clutch I was expearimenting with different tranny oils to fine tune the clutch engagement. Well I had the bright idea to try some Royal Purple synthetic 5-40 motor oil.
My next ride out the water pump seal started leaking and the tranny oil was milky. So I purchase a new seal and installed, flushed the tranny with paint thinner a couple times and reinstalled the Royal Purple oil.
Next ride out, milky oil again.:mad:. So I pulled the seal out again and could not find any reason that is should be leaking. So I reassembled the seal making sure I cleaned the faces real good with alcohol and a Q-tip making sure that there was no oil them just like I did before, flushed the tranny a couple times with paint thinner again.

I repeated this for 2 more rides. :( The coolant loss was always very minor.

The last time I changed back to a minerial based motor oil (Valvoline 5-20), when out for a ride and no milky oil :o and has been good for 1200 mi. now.

Now it could have been that either I finely got the seal installed right (good chance) or could it have been that the synthetic oil was so slick that it was making a film on the seal faces holding them apart just enough that some coolant could seep by.:rolleyes:. Beats Me.
If you are using the Rotella T Synthetic might try some thing else. That my story for what it's worth.
 
Hydro
I was wondering about the rottella.. I was using 15w 40 and I think it was dino .. but maybe semi synth. The last stuff in there was castrol gear saver not sure if it is synth or not. Maybe I'll try some old school dino mc oil. However I know of several guys one with the same year bike that ran rottela synth. can't hurt to give your approach a shot. Pump seal went in nice and dry and clean when new.

peb ... side cover gasket has been replaced and the one that was there looked fine....

heres a fuzzy pic of the seal that came out. it has probaly 15 to 20 hours on it.
 

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I had another thought (if the head/cylinder hasn't been removed yet).

Why not get some gasket material, a block of AL, and block off the coolant passages on the side cover. Then, pull the radiator, and build yourself a pressurization rig for the cylinder head. My pressurization rig was a Shrader valve threaded in a piece of steel pipe inserted into the cooling hose on the head. Now, you've sealed off the head/cylinder/case; if you pressurize, and it holds pressure, you've isolated where the problem isn't.

If it won't hold pressure, you've found at least the components where the leak is occurring. You can use a squirt bottle with soap water to look for the leak (if you can't hear it).

If it will hold pressure, then you have to look at the water pump, side cover, vents, etc.

This would probably take you an hour to do. Not too long at all.

I can show you pictures of the rig i built if it helps.

blitz
 
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skid,

Its not the Rotella. Many of us have run this for years in several bikes with no such issues.

I'm with blitz on this one, you need to get serious about a pressure test.
 
I'm watching this thread intensely as I too have a GG ('06 EC300) which seems to experience milky (Rotella) tranny fluid. I run Evans waterless coolant but experience no significant loss. I ride in dry conditions (the Okanagan Valley in B.C.) and wash my bike using only a low-pressure garden hose. I run an auto-clutch with my clutch-slave removed/blocked-off. So my system sounds pretty similar.

If one were to pressurize the coolant system, what pressure would one use? Wouldn't you want to pressurize to less than the rad cap opening pressure (14 PSI)?

Dale
 
Actually, i was thinking that you can also use the pressurization rig to check the side cover/water pump cover, seals, etc.

The block you make to block off the water passages in coming from the cases can be used to block off the side cover as well. Then, you get two pieces of radiator hose, put the Shrader valve in one, block off the other (with a pipe cap), and then pressurize that deal. (The water pump drive / impeller will have to be installed). You'll have to buy another $5 worth of pipe/cap, but it's worth it.

You can run this up to 20 psi (if you use a 1.4 bar rad cap) and you should have no leakage. If you do, then you can find that leak with the soapy water.

You could have a porous side cover casting in a coolant passage.

Good luck.

blitz.
 
I was also thinking it was time to start thinking about pressurising the rads or the engine some how .... That would normally be when I send it off to a shop. blitz I think I understand what your saying but not quite sure. Some pics might be nice. Why can't you just pressurize the cooling system through the rad filler cap. if it is cooling system related then you'll loose pressure, I guess you'd then have to start isolating various parts of the cooling system??
 
You could pressurize through the cap, but since you have it apart, you can isolate which part of the engine the leak is in.

With my kid's KTM, i had a porous casting between the cooling jacket adn the PV cavity. Pressure testing the cooling system would tell me that i HAD a leak, but not tell me where. Pressurizing subsystems will let you identify where the leak is. If it leaks from between the cylinder head and one of the water pump ports, you know it is head/case/cylinder. if it leaks from the radiator hose to the water pump port, you know it is the case.

If it doesn't leak there, then you know it is water pump 'cause that is the only other part where it could leak.

I'll take pictures, and you'll see that it is pretty easy to make a pressure testing rig.

More later.

blitz
 
Sorry this took so long. I am getting my a$$ kicked at work.

Anyway, i have a photo attached.

Th picture is the entire pressurization rig:

1. a piece of pipe, cap, and Schrader valve. That's what gets stuck into the cooling hose. Just hook it up to a bicycle pump, keep pressure under 20 PSI.

2. A 1/4" thick AL plate i built using a bandsaw and dremel cutting tool. The idea here was to cover the cooling passages in the cylinder and block flow. I used a base gasket to get the shape right.

3. The thing on the left is the gasket i made to seal off the cooling passage. just buy some gasket material at the local cage shop, and build yourself a gasket. This was scissors and an exacto knife. (The only D i ever received in school was in art class. Now you know why.)


Anyway, you can do this.

Good luck.

blitz.
 

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where did you find the shrader valve??
and how can you pressurize the whole system through the cap?? If it is simple enough I'd rather start there ... if it holds pressure I can skip taking things apart ....
 
Shrader valves can be found at a hardware store in the plumbing section. One side will be Shrader, and the other end will be either 1/8 or 1/4 National Pipe Thread (NPT). You can find the pipe and the cap threaded with the 1/8 or 1/4 NTP there, too.

We know that you don't have a radiator leak, so you put the pipe into the hose which leads to the cylinder head. If you block off the two passages leading to the water pump cavity, then you pressurize the cooling cavity by taking a bicycle pump and filling the cavity with air. If the bike pump has a pressure gage, you can watch that and see if it holds pressure or it leaks out. you don't have to take much off; it looked like your bike is mostly apart.

Does that help?

blitz
 
yes except the bike is all back together and will most likely be ridden this weekend!! .. I'm on the ride and drain tranny oil next day program. thats why I'm thinking to pressurize the whole system for starters
 
Victory!!!

I made a home built plug and pressurized the rad ..
at 20 psi fluid starts pissing out on of the right side top rad hose to rad connection. I replace the crimp thingy with a pipe clamp no more leaky...
I pump it back up to 20 psi and my zip ty plug closure do hicky slips off and I get a nice champagne pop followed by a small rad fluid shower. I redouble my zip ty closure and pump it up to a safe 15 psi and leave it over night. In the morning it is 10 psi but I notice a little wet spot under the bike. The crimp thingy on the rad hose leading to the head dribbles a bit. I'll repace that one with a pipe clamp the next time the tank is off. Although neither crimp leaked when the bike is run ... go figure ... I drained the tranny the day before and left it empty. Wondering if maybe some of that 10 psi went into the tranny and not on the floor I opened the drain again. A bit more of that milky looking fluid comes out, looks like some left over from the day before that had over night to make it to the drain plug. Dump 900 ml into the tranny and go ride a very wet 15 miles splashy muddy water everywhere. end of the ride and the tranny fluid still looks like oil and not regular coffee .... kind of a short ride though, cross my fingers, damn maybe I got it with that second pump seal install.... Ride a 55 mile turkey run the next week. Mostly rocky single track with a few respectable water crossings along the way. At the end of the ride tranny oil still looks like oil .... yesssss!! But it was the driest ride I've been on in a year .... maybe it is coming in from out side still ..... need to hit more water to make sure. It rains 3 inches yesterday, for Nh thats a shitload of rain!! 1" of rain in 24 hrs is considered a respectable rain. 3 inches in 24 hours ...Yikes!! usual riding area is an endless brown watery puddle, water every where. Rode another 15 or 20 miles making sure to run through every puddle I can see. End of the ride ....
tranny oil still looks like oil ...
lets see one 15 mile very wet ride
one 55 mile long technical 5 to 6 hour ride
another extremely wet 15 mile ride ...
tranny oil still looks like oil ...
YESSSSSS!!! THIS FOKKER IS FIXED!!!

ok so the moral of this six page thread is ...it appears to me that it takes miniscule amounts of rad fluid to make your tranny oil look like regular coffee and if you change your pump seal and you still get milky tranny fluid ..... change it again and be super careful not to touch the ceramic bits. don't waste your time changing every other seal on the bike until you give that pump seal another shot. If I just did the pump seal again back in april I would not have wasted all that time changing out sprocket seals and orings and gaskets etc. etc. etc. at this point I consider this issue officially solved .....
now back to that funky handling thread ... ;)
 
Well that victory was short lived .....
did another short wet ride thats a total of somewhere around 100 to 115 miles. drained the oil and .... it came out kind of dark gray ... not black like it should be ....hmmmm maybe its just left over goo from the leak, yeah thats it.... I just need to do some rides and change the fluid after each ride to get it nice and clean inside that tranny .... i put a fresh batch of oil in .... rode today in pretty wet conditions and ..... Mr Coffee maker is back!!! oil did not look good in the site glass and looked even worse when I drained it .... just like all the other crap oil that came out if it this summer.

What really sucks is I still don't know if it is coming from inside or outside the motor, (I'm banking its inside at the moment, thinking impellar shaft, although it seemed smooth when check it) riding season is pretty much done and its not the kind of thing you can just replace a part on and know its fixed. you got to ride the fokker after you mess with it to make sure you got it. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to drop it in a club members lap and have his shop fugg with it. at least do some leak testing to make sure it isn't casting related .... then I'll have to wait till next spring to find out if it is working right .... guess I could get some studded tires and ride this winter ....
 
well I have at least determined it must be coming from outside the motor. We have had a very dry spring anf I managed to put about 200 miles before draining the oil. it came out somewhere between pretty damn clean and almost ready to turn black. With fresh oil in the tranny I went out on a 100 cart road/trail ride. It had rained the day before so there was a little mud and water here and there but not bad. At one point we had to do a go around and that involved two somewhat deep water crossings. the kind that make your exhaust note change. The distances were pretty short though. The bike made it through with out a hick up. At the end of the day I checked the site window and my fresh oil in the morning had gone all gray on me. Crank vent line runs to the air box, I've replaced every seal except the shifter seal. There isn't any oil coming out of there so I can't imagine there is water going in. I haven't touched the clutch slave but do believe I checked it. I checked all the case bolts and they were tight as from the factory. Clutch cover gasket and clutch side case gasket are new. there are no obvious oil leaks comeing out of the motor. the TT crf 450 forum has a couple of threads about gray tranny oil and they claim it is just the clutch plate wear. I did end up stalled on a pretty steep hill and spun the clutch getting going and then worked it pretty good getting up that hill. I'd like to get sell this bike, but I can't do that until I get this "leak" figured out. This is really bumming me out!!
 
If it really is coming in from the outside, this is easy to find.

I believe that our bikes have one transmission vent. Take the vent hose, fit a bicycle presta valve to it, and take a pump with a gage, and pressurize the transmission, to say, 10 PSI to start.

If it has more than one vent, block the other.

Does it hold pressure?

If so, then if air doesn't get out, water is not getting in (unless it is coming in through the trans vent). If it doesn't hold pressure, then you have a leak. If you have a leak, then you might be able to hear it (if the pressure drops quickly) or if you can't hear it, fill a spray bottle with soap water, and look for bubbles.

If you can't find an air leak, it is unlikely that water is coming in from the outside as the pressure differential is low.

However, it might be that you are sucking water in through the trans vent. We've effectively blocked that passage here, so we're not testing that.

If it doesn't leak down, then reroute the trans vent way up high.

We've verified (i believe) that the cooling system is not leaking. To double check the cooling system, if you pressurize the trans and it leaks down, pop the rad cap and look for bubbles.

The only way to really solve this is through testing.

good luck.

blitz
 
blitz,

Great idea but I'm afraid it won't work because the trans vent is also shared with the powervalve on the right side, so any air pressure will be lost through the right side bearing. I suppose it would work if you removed the PV bearing and replaced it with a stopper, and replaced the bolts, isolating the transmission/primary.

Skid,

This may have been mentioed before but check the fitting on the top of right side PV chamber, and the seal of the cover gasket, especially in the lower corners where the base gasket may interfere. If either are loose its a direct dump down into the primary through the PV rod passage. My '03 once had milky oil and a rusty right PV bearing and I found the fitting loose in the cylinder.
 
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