I went out for a ride on my trusty steed yesterday , being a nice day an all , got about 20 miles down the road & went into one of my fav left handers & lost the back end , was very , very lucky not to go down , kind of thought SHIIEET ,that was close , there must have been some diesel one the road or something , then went into the next bend which was a right hander (a bit more gingerly) and the rear started to slide again . By now I'm thinking WTF !! - So I pulled in to a little side lane , looked at my rear tyre & it was completely covered in oil . It turned out that the oil filter , which is a chrome K&N oil filter was leaking out of the nut at the bottom , which is kind of tack welded on . It was absolutely pissing out of there . Luckily there was still enough oil in the engine not to be a danger , but I'm a bit pissed off because the tyre is a new Avon & isn't very old - I've cleaned it off but I'm hoping the tyre is going to be fine . I shan't be getting another one of those bloody filters !! The funniest thing about this episode was that whilst I was laid under my bike trying to see wtf was happening , this little reno clio pulled up & an attractive young lady hopped out & asked me if everything was okay , she saw me there & thought I'd fallen off , which I thought was rather sweet , especially as I was in all my biker kit trying to look as menacing as possible lol
With diesel? Hi mate glad to hear you didn't hit the deck or do any damage. Couldn't you smell the diesel?
I had to ring Steve , who very kindly let me wobble gently back to his house which was nearby , park on his drive leaving a trail of oil , & then gave me biscuits & tea while I sobbed and smoked cigarettes in his garden
Glad you got out of it ok. How long before the ride did you fit it? was this the nut you tighten the oil filter up with? could you have over tightened or bottomed the bike out on something to crack it?
Hi Crispey , yeah I fitted the oil filter at the end of may so its been on quite a while - just before my trip to France , and I didn't use the nut on the bottom to tighten , I just did it by hand as I didn't want to overtighten it , really strange as the bike has been sat in the garage for almost a week , since the last time I used it & it just randomly started to leak whilst out yesterday , I ran through events in my head but nothing kind of explains it other than the filter must have just suddenly sprang a leak
I would contact K&N and tell them, it could be a defect with that batch and might occur again, but also to show your dissatisfaction with the product.
Wow Daryl, that could have been soooooooooooh much worse. I would definitely be reporting that to K&N UK - not so much to get any money or anything but much more to warn them that somebody could die, as a result of this manufacturing fault.
Yes I think I will , I looked at the filter & its made in Korea , it was off ebay - but yep I'll look into it and make contact with them
I hope you're feeling a bit more chilled about it this morning? I know that would have shook me up pretty badly. Good job you know a thing or two about riding - imagine that happening to a relative novice?
thanks Dave , I think the thing that initially worried me was that my poor bike engine had got a serious oil leak & my bank account was going to be raped - and it's my only bike - potential nightmare scenario , so when I discovered it was just the oil filter I was breathing a lot easier. But yes it could have been a lot worse if I'd come off , I've had plenty of stuff like that back in the racing days , but the situation is very different . I always wore all the best kit for crashing & when you do come off it's on a race track with nothing to smack into (usually) , whereas crashing on the road has so many variables , a lot scarier .
Buying expensive original Triumph filters now don't look quite so expensive do they? When I buy Hi-Flo 204's for my bike I have to get a bike dealer to order them in and it takes days and days for them to arrive and cost about 8-9€ apiece, whereas Triumph ones are available at the dealers immediately and cost 9-10€; so I've switched over to using the OE ones and I pick 'em up when I'm in Limoges or Bourges and buy 2 or 3 at a time.
Glad your OK, after reading the above seems to me don't risk cheap ebay filters stick to a Triumph filter for the sake of a few quid - you know it makes sense
well tbh , it wasn't really a cheaper option - it was a chrome K&N one , which I bought with a K&N air filter as part of a set . It was actually 2 quid more that a Triumph one , which I had used prior to this one , I never skimp on service parts , only the best oil & filters for my bikes , same goes for brake fluid , fork oil , brake pads etc etc , all of which I do myself because I don't trust garages & I'm a fully qualified engineer too so it's not like it's difficult . Having said that it was made in Korea but so's a lot of other stuff these days I guess .
