oil leaking around tacho cable entry

which parts would i need to replace to stop oil leaking around the tacho cable entry?
and can they be replaced from the outside?
i notice it's a bit loose.
www.z1enterprises.com/Tach-Oil-Seal-Kawasaki-1585.aspx

you need the rubber seal from z1 you can install it without any trouble but to get it to stop is very hard to do that oil grimlen always seems to come back good luck

+1 on the tach oil seal, but also get the viton orings. I think it takes two. Very simple to replace these parts. Should do the trick. However, some people have complained that they didn't get theirs to stop leaking until they also finally replaced drive block off as well. But I would think that is usually not required. I replaced just the seal and orings. I purchased two of each just for future need since shipping cost more than the parts.

Proper seal R&R is critical. Often difficult to get all of the old seal removed as it may have become so hard and encrusted that its like a piece of carbon.
A dental pic or similar tool may help completely extract remnants of the old seal.

When correctly done, the tach drive unit won't leak on a cross-country tour, even without a drive cable attached to it.

Good Fortune!

cheers guys
i will gradually stop all the little leaks !!
the trouble is it's only done 12k miles and by the looks of it it's been covered up in a shed for a few years.. which is nice but as soon as it starts to get used again all the seals have hardened up and out comes the oil..

yours and about 75% of the others

It's pretty amazing 20 plus year old resurrected bikes don't piss more oil. :dry: Think things won't dry out a bit? :whistle:

Something to be said there.

The sitting around doesn't generally bother the seals, it's heat from the engine. I have 2 low mile KZs, a 1800 mile 78 KZ650, and a 4000 mile 1980 KZ1000ST and neither one leaks one drop of oil anywhere. Now the used ones, that's a different story. My 1979 KZ1000MKII which was only used for long trips for 8 yrs did 80,000 miles in basically 2 weeks a year so 80,000 miles for the most part in 16 weeks total ride time. The KZ1000 is not bad about oil leaks. My drive is seized in the head and I stopped the leaks by just making a homemade gasket between the cable and the drive. The KZ650 is a different story, a high mile KZ650 will leak in 50 places. It's all miles and heat.

RonKZ650 wrote: ...My drive is seized in the head and I stopped the leaks by just making a homemade gasket between the cable and the drive....

This method allows the oil leaking through the tach drive housing to be contained within the cable sheath instead of escaping to the outside. And oil continues leaking past the shaft seal inside the housing, but goes up into the cable sheath instead of escaping past the cable attachment outside onto the engine cooling fins.

But such method doesn't contain any oil that might escape around the tach drive housing, where such leakage is often due to a faulty or missing o'ring, or damaged parts (cracked or broken tach housing or engine head), or incorrect installation of the tach housing.

Good Fortune!

RonKZ650 wrote: The sitting around doesn't generally bother the seals, it's heat from the engine. I have 2 low mile KZs, a 1800 mile 78 KZ650, and a 4000 mile 1980 KZ1000ST and neither one leaks one drop of oil anywhere. Now the used ones, that's a different story. My 1979 KZ1000MKII which was only used for long trips for 8 yrs did 80,000 miles in basically 2 weeks a year so 80,000 miles for the most part in 16 weeks total ride time. The KZ1000 is not bad about oil leaks. My drive is seized in the head and I stopped the leaks by just making a homemade gasket between the cable and the drive. The KZ650 is a different story, a high mile KZ650 will leak in 50 places. It's all miles and heat.

Being the perfectionist that he is, and endowed with superb mechanical skills, Ron will undoubtedly be impelled sooner or later to extract the seized drive and perform the correct repairs.

This may happen when the tach cable is latter replaced, and drips oil all over. :pinch:
Or maybe when the increasing volume of contained oil makes its way up into the tachometer. :pinch: :pinch:

Good Fortune!

ahhhhhhhhhhh....small rubber ring..out.....small rubber ring .....in...tighten with pliers extra tight....or leave leaking as a sign you have oil