ride turned into drama

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

 

sorry computer kicked me out before Id finished - its edited now lol

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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 .

 

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 .