Today I hopefully fixed a couple of things.
For the last month, my G5 has been leaking a bit of oil from the front rocker arm cover. Not a lot. Just enough to dampen the top cooling fin. It was more of an annoyance than a Oh My God sort of thing.
The bike also is up to 8100 miles so I decided to do as the Owners Manual says and replaced the fuel hose (although the old one looked fine with no cracks, delamination or deterioration that would cause the rubber to 'wipe off' of the inside).
To fix the oil leak, I removed the seat, fuel tank and rocker cover and applied a thin coating of Ultra-Black oil resistant RTV silicone to both sides of the gasket.
This gasket is a preformed elastomer that has a tab engaging a slot in the cover and I figure it's possible for oil to leak around both sides so I coated both sides of the gasket with the RTV.
Although it wasn't leaking, while I had the tank off I decided to also do this to the intake valves cover gasket. The intake side by the way took a bit of sneaking to get it off but by moving the wiring harness and the control cables on the top tube a little, it can be done.
While I had the tank off, I remembered that the low fuel sending unit seemed to quit working about a year ago so I thought it was a good time to look at it to see what the problem was.
When It was out I couldn't believe what I saw.
A apparently glass tube with a wire inside of it, surrounded by a translucent gelatinous blob. Nothing else.
I wiped off the goo which was about the consistancy of Jello.
I assume the float and whatever else used to be there has been floating around inside the tank for the past year.
Any of you folks know what I should have been seeing???
I guess my biggest concern is that the goo might screw up my $200 fuel pump or plug its built in fuel filter. The pump is working fine now so I decided to leave it alone rather than risk damaging it by removing it.
The bike is still under warranty but that will run out in 5 months. If it does screw up my pump, hopefully Kevin will recall my Jello-like findings story and give me a break on the replacement. After all, if the damn fuel level sender wouldn't have dissolved I wouldn't have Jello like crap inside my fuel tank.
Another thing that I thought needed some attention was the flat black rubber strap that holds the ECU in place.
This has at most seen one hour of sunlight in its life but it is developing some severe stress cracks, some of which go all the way thru the strap. This sort of thing happens to some rubber when it is under constant stress and it really should be replaced but stuff like this is only available to Dealers service department.
I can understand this but it kinda sucks for someone who doesn't really trust their bikes to an unknown mechanic at a service center that has probably never even taken a RE apart.
Anyway, I have an old foam sleeping pad that's made for hiking that had two flat nylon straps with loops on it. It now has one strap on it. The other was looped thru the two metal loops that hold the rubber strap on and cinched down to apply a little load and serve as a 'backup' for the black rubber strap.
Everything is back together now and the bike is running like a champ.
Because the oil leak was very slow, it will take a day or so before I know that the leak problem is truly fixed so for now, my fingers are crossed.