Ut...oh..she's starting to smoke on start up

I've got whitish/blue smoke for the first 2-3 minutes at start up. This is a new development for the old girl. Usual culprits rings and or valve seals? I have 55,000 Kilometers on the bike and I put some hard highway miles on it. The bike runs well other than the burning oil (I have to keep a closer eye on toping it up now these days). The shifting is getting sloppy also, with the bike lurching when I put it in 1st. I always give the bike a few minutes to warm up. If I shut the bike down after warm up, the shift down, then back up to neutral, I seem to take some of the slop/play out. I can then restart the bike, engage 1st and only get a moderate jerk/lurch. After running, the shifting is ok but I feel some kind of medium slop and not the solid old "clunk" of before. Me thinks that it's time to pull the engine apart...Any comments/shared experiences concerning these issues is appreciated. I suppose step one is a compression test.

Valve seal wear is usually the culprit on smokey start-ups, but your motor does have a lot of clicks on it so it could be just getting tired.

I would suggest just keeping an eye on the oil level (possibly the cause of sloppy and clunking shifts) and pull the head and jugs over the long Saskatchewan winter. At that time you could check the pistons, rings and cylinders for wear and clean up the valves.

BTW, there is a set of barely used 650 rings in the classified section right now.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada

810 winter project maybe?
sounds like a good time.
ported head also :evil: ?
collin is the man to ask for advice.
he really helped me out.

Blue smoke is oil passing the rings. Usually when valve stem seals wear out, they will just foul out your spark plugs and carbon up the combustion chamber. Also, when valve seals go really bad, the engine will smoke when letting off the gas then cranking it on again. The vaccuum pulls the oil by the seals. If the engine smokes when just sitting there running it is the rings........chris3

Thanks guys. I haven't really put a lot of mental energy into this situation yet, as I'm quite busy and the plates don't expire until Oct. 16. I'm 9/10th's set that I'll drop the engine out of the frame after the 16th. (I have to because I live in an apartment building and don't have a garage) Other than replacing a cam chain and reshimmimng twice, I have never pulled the engine apart. Time to go to the next levels on my learning curve I guess.

I will also make every effort not to be lazy and ask for spoon fed answers. Once the war pony's engine is out I'll be seriously eyeballing the archives, then ask for clarification etc. Thanks again.