Q: I was wondering if you guys could shed some light on a recent problem I’ve encountered with my beloved 1980s Honda XL500R?
I’ve had the bike for about eight years now and it only has 23,00km on the clock. It’s never given me any problems and I service it myself, after all it’s not really a hard job, is it? But recently I’ve noticed that it’s began to use more oil than it usually does, but there’s no smoke coming from the exhaust to tell me if something is wrong.
So before I delve any further could you perhaps give me some advice on to what is going on inside my engine? Your help/advice will be appreciated and thanks for your time and a really entertaining site.
Bill Gardner
A: If what you’ve told me were correct I would suspect that the trouble is around your piston. It sounds like the compression ring glands might have failed, or you might have a cracked piston around that area. If the oil ring were OK it wouldn’t smoke too badly and again point to this confusing oil loss problem.
So if I were you I’d pull off the head and barrel, because as you say it’s an easy bike to work on, and have a good look at the piston? It won’t be too expensive to buy a new one either because you’ll be able to buy a decent aftermarket part if you shop around. If you have any problems give me a call at Bikeworx (011 792 5795).
