Oil drips from airbox

Hello all,
I have one question regarding some oil drips from my airbox. Is it normal to have some oil come up from engine breather and drip out of the airbox or do I have a problem. Did I overfill with oil on my last change? It is not a great deal of oil. The inside bottom of the airbox looks oil wet but not a whole lot. the bike is running strong, plenty of power for a 550. This is on a 1983 KZ550LTD with stock airbox and 5,100 miles on the clock. Any help, suggestions is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Will.

Good to hear your bike is running well and welcome to the forum. Oil could be coming from your air filter if it is an oiled type or your crankcase breather if you overfilled the engine. Best to drain some out if it is over the upper line on the sightglass, when the bike is vertical. It only holds around 3L or 3.2Qts.

Post edited by: oldcoldankles, at: 2006/02/02 12:56

Your airbox may be connected to the crankcase via the breather. If you are getting oil in the airbox, then it is most likely coming from the crankcase breather. This indicates some blowby. First, check to ensure you don't have too much oil in the bike. You can do this by placing the bike on centerstand and looking at the oil sight glass in the clutch cover. If the oil level seems normal, buy a compression tester. Warm up the engine and remove the spark plugs. Hold the throttle open and put the compression tester in each plug hole and kick the bike over several times to peak up the meter and record the reading. I am not sure what the service spec is for your bike but a Kawasaki Factory Service Manual or Clymers will tell. It should probably be around 150 psi. with no more than 10 ~ 15 PSI variance between cylinders or something like that. If it is less, then you have a ring problem. To verify, seal the rings temporarily by putting 1 tbsp of motor oil down each cylinder and checking compression in the same way, once again. ONLY DO ONE CYLINDER AT A TIME as oil will gush out and hit the ceiling on the cylinders not being checked. If compression jumps noticeably... say from 110 psi to 180 psi for this test, the problem is surely the rings. As an alternative, you can do a leak-down compression test but this requires a leak-down type tester and some expertise to pinpoint where air is leaking.

With the low miles, I would be surprised if you had a blowby problem but if the bike sat for a long period, moisture in the crankcase can get up into the cylinder bores and rust them making piston ring seal poor. You might try some Yamaha Ring Free or Seafoam in your oil to see if you can free the rings up to seal a bit better.

Thank you all for the suggestions.
I did take a little oil out. About 1.5 ounce that apparently was registering over the top line. But I don't know if being that much over would have cause the oil drip. I guess it could. As far as the bike sitting, Yes, It sat in my neighbor's garage for 12 years before I got it back on the road. The funny thing is I rode the bike from Feb 05 'til about Sept 05 and did not have any issues. Then in October I started noticing the oil streak on my center stand and onto the floor. I parked the bike and didn't think much of it. Now I am getting ready to start riding this season and wanted pursue this oil thing.
I guess I can take it out for a ride now after draining some of the oil and see if that was it. I'll check the compression as well since I haven't done so. Just to be on the safe side.

Thanks again,
Will.