head gasket oil leak

Ended last riding season with an oil leak, did some checking this past winter and found the valve cover leaking. Changed gasket, put new cam plugs in (re-shimied valves while in there)
got like 300 miles on it since. When I got home the other night, smelt oil again. I did some looking and found the head gasket leaking quite well. Got on Z1 and ordered complete engine gasket set only like $4 more then top end kit. So here is the guestion, can I just go down to the head gasket or do I need to take cylanders off to? I believe the head bolts hold the jugs on to. Really dont want to go that far, can't really afford to have cylanders honed or by new rings if I take them off.

Just looking for everyones opinion, looking to start tearing it apart tomorrow (friday). Don't really want to take it apart a third time.

Thanks guys

You can replace the head gasket without disturbing the base gasket. Just be careful and you'll be fine.

92055-1147 is the o-rings for around the pins that line up the head and are an oil galley, this is what leaks. #6 in the parts fiche.

Has the foot powder spray test been done to confirm source of the leak?

Good Fortune!

Redneck, you need to stop with that icon ,is killing me :woohoo: .

RONKZ650 THANKS I thought you could but wanted second apinion

motor head yea head read about the rings changing them to

patton dont need powder test leaking that bad but will double check

thanks charles nix

redneckcarrow wrote: ...dont need powder test leaking that bad but will double check..../quote]

May be able to confirm the leaking head gasket diagnosis with a compression test, or by injecting compressed air into the spark plug hole to see whether air escapes through a leaking head gasket.

A leaking head gasket is often misdiagnosed as the source of an oil leak, which may actually result from cam cover gasket, cam end plug, tach drive, exhaust port (loose clamp, leaking gasket, etc.) , oil cooler hose fitting, etc.

And usually the causes other than leaking head gasket are easier to correct.
Just hoping for a more simple and perhaps less expensive solution.

Good Fortune!

sorry for long wait for reply

Patton had allready changed cam cover gasket put new cam end plugs in it and the seal on the tach drive becouse thay were leaking earlyer this spring

this oil leak was coming from left front side (sitting on bike) got head off gasket seamed fine but the little rubber ring on that side had split in it looks like ben thair a long while so hopping now that it won't leak anymore

did find a couple other problems while taking carbs off (first time off bike for me) one air in let boot was split the whole length of it and another one was so hard that it broke trying to take off so replaced all 4

then i did finally got carbs out (know why peaple hate the air boxes so bad now) found one of the intake boots rolled in so the carb wasn't actually in the boot but on good not they were nice and soft like someone had replaced them fairly resent so re used them made shure carbs went in them bike now idles much better now