Well, as some of you may know my bike had a bit of an oil problem, as in it was piddling out of the pipes on the side. This seemed to be ok after the oil filter change but then got worse again after my taxi episode. More recently the oil that has been piddling out has been of a milky substance, indicating that it has water in it.
A couple of people have said to me that it could be the head gasket.... is this true? and if so, what should I do about it?

Yup- get it changed ASAP! Katy had the same problem in her car- I'm guessing the principal is the same.

If the gasket is allowed to deteriorate too much, it overheats and may cause extra strain and damage to the cylinder head and which'll need re-skimming which might cost a bit.

A £10 spent on a gasket is peanuts compared to heavy duty metalwork.

Is the XJ water cooled?

no, air cooled

how high up is it leaking, right at the top?, did you loose any fins off the head when you came off it?... to me it sounds like its the rocker cover thats leaking, it may of been shoved over slightly in the crash, its only held on by 8 allen bolts, yuky white stuff is more likely to come from there than the head gasket, it tends to be black oil from there
i have a haynes manual if you need any pages copied out hun, the oil pipe should be fairly easy to sort as well
chances are undoing the rocker cover bolts and tightening it back down may fix it, its a rubber seal

or you could migrate 90 miles from scarborough and i'll fix it for you

lol cheers woodz..... that is definitely an option.. tho I rather hoped the north contingent may come and meet us
BB called his mate tonight, who is a mechanicky person, he reckons that it may just be condensation causing the milky stuff (it is left outside all the time after all) it's doubtful its the head gasket after all (both the people who mentioned this are car drivers rather than bikers.. apparently this is common with cars as they are liquid cooled, so the milky stuff is usually the coolant leaking into the gasket) It does seem to be milky in the morning and not after a good run out.. so that would be right with condensation build up. However, the oil leak I fear may be my fault ( I think I may have inadvertently overfilled it slightly ) and the pipe is chucking out cos it basically needs a good clean up (it looks...erm... 'orrible lmao)
Anyway, this weekend I shall be giving Rory a majorly overdue clean and do all these things, and hopefully he will be ok
Thanks for all ur help tho guys

i think ruby's setting of tomorrow so she should just might make it in time!

unless her misrable ole git of a husband takes her on the day of cause

rethink time.... went out for a little run up to Horsham today in the lovely sunshine, got there fine but on the way back apparently my bike made a loud pop bang pop sound and a cloud of black smoke came out the left hand zorst (I didn't hear a thing, but then again I am deaf as a post). Since I parked it up at home, there seems to be a bigger oil leak... worse still it's not coming out the overflow pipe
I shall give him a good clean tomorrow and investigate then, as theres so much muck on him that I can't see where its coming from... it doesn't sound good tho

GET WELL SOON

RORY

Might be a valve gone, not terminal at all!

With the oil leak and possible gasket prob, might just be that the oil wasn't getting where it should.

what could of happened is if there is to much oil in theres a breather which goes into the airbox, oil will go up there to, gets all over the air filter and could explain the the bang pop thing
it will involve taking the tank off to look... dunno if you've ever took the tank off before , two bolts hold the tank on, there a small screw inside the petrol tap knob to take out so the knob comes off, two pipes on the tap (make sure the tap's either on, on or reserve)and off she comes (also a breather pipe i leave that on the tank), be careful when you put it back on as the tap has a habit of catching some pipes on the carbs... the top of the airbox has 4 screws

ok, thanks woodz, I may have my first foray into the world of destroying... erm, I mean dismantling big important things on my bike tomorrow.. depending how brave I feel
If I don't do it tomorrow, will it be ok to ride til Easter weekend do u reckon? Cos there might be someone with me that weekend that knows how to put stuff back together without having lots of things left over

the best thing to do is to clean it as planned and see if you can see where the oils coming from, if you can take a piccie of the offender it'll help in tracking it down
if theres a lot of muck n grim it soaks up the oil and makes it look 10 times worse, so it may not be as bad as it looks
the hardest part of getting the tank off is the little screw holding the knob on the tap, make sure you use a good philips screwdriver, mine had siezed in

if the oil leak just gets slightly worse after a ride out it'll be ok, if its a large amount quickly it needs sorting
its def oil not petrol? xj's are a bit prone to leaky petrol tanks

well, its definitely oil from the pipes, tbh I didn't really check the other stuff, coulda been petrol, I just saw it and got all pessimistic and depressed

noooooooooooo
if i remember right sqeeze over filled his and had the same problems, which is easily done, those silly little spy holes can be very miss leading, they seem to take ages to show the true amount of oil in the bike
i'd drain some oil out and get it around the half way mark ... its going to be messy tho!!

if you like give me a pm if you get stuck or i'll give you our number and you could give us a ring (not as far up in geordieland as DP, so you stand a good chance of understanding wot we say )

lol ok, I'm a dab hand at oil changes now, so I will drain some out tomorrow and see if that helps....
I'm not sure thats the problem with the other leak tho, but we'll see. I sat and read my Haynes manual tonight and convinced myself I would have to take the engine out
Thanx for all ur help.... tho am sure I shall be needing more later, so don't go away will ya?

no problem

I'm gonna take a pic of the hanging cable tomorrow.... if u have ms paint, can u "x marks the spot" where its supposed to go?

anyone any good with fridge freezers?

Filling them or emptying them?

Oooooo.....you got loads of thawed out food needs eating?

heres a likkle piccie of where the wire goes

this is it,

does it look like your cable?

yep thats the beasty

i've been hangin upside down too, heres a piccie of where it goes....
trust me it is blue wire its a bit yuy up there!

just thought your has the twin exhausts dunnit? that might make it hard to see..

hehe, mines all black down there, u can't see a thing... I did try to feel me way around but just managed to get all the crud over my fingers Roks then proceeded to poke all the cruddy oil lumps out with a wooden kebab stick... worried me a bit, cos I think that's all that's holding the bike together
And yesh, he does have twin zorsts

OK, this is weird but since I've cleaned the bike and the little pipes there seem to be no more leaks. However, I filled the bike up Saturday morning before my run to Horsham and I've only done about 90 miles since (I can't tell exactly as unfortunately Roks moved my milometer when I was cleaning the bike Sunday) and I ran out of petrol this morning... I usually get at least 130 to the tank. Do u think the large leak on Saturday could have been fuel? If so, why has it stopped leaking now?

kin ell.... 130? a tenner in mine gets me 150miles to reserve, and thats a lot of town work, thrashing the t*ts off it thro the gears ....

i would of thought such a radical change would make the bike run badly, loss of power that sort of thing, i'd def check the air filter, if oil did get up there it would use more petrol because the air filter will be soaked in oil, is the choke sticking? (probably rev higher than normal on tickover)
a fuel leak wouldn't go a way, they tend to get worse

strangley mine seemed to sprung oil leaks after sundays thrash! nothing drastic but they wheren't as bad before lol

I was kinda thinking along the lines of the pop bang pop syndrome may have been caused by a blockage in the little rubber oil pipes on the side of the bike (the overflows as i call em ) cos I have since found out from Nicky that the smoke she saw started off black/grey then went white... so I presume that it was something to do with the oil, and since I cleaned them on sunday they haven't been leaky anything... they were a bit gunged up before tho
The bike feels fine.... just the ominous knocking noise that I think may be the cam chain or the drive chain (I can't figure exactly where it's coming from as I can only hear it whilst riding along at 30 -50, problem solved, ride around at 70+ lol)

Found and connected the offending wire thanks to woodz's pic ( cheers mate!), we're off in a minute to have a look at the air filter and clean out the crankcase breather pipes. Camchain is a little rattly (common on XJs or not?) so we'll torque down the adjuster bolt to the correct setting and see if that cures it.

Might be worthwhile cleaning out all the breather pipes on the bike, and clean out all the gunge filters, it may help. But without actually seeing the bike I couldnt be more spacific.

it maybe worth taking the tensioner out, i've heard they do stick, mines done 30000 miles and the chains still ok.... glad you found that wire, awkward little sod innit lol

Well, air filter and housing are all clean, all pipes have been cleaned out, he's torqued the cam chain down (I swear it woulda jumped ) adjusted my clutch (tho it seems I need a new clutch cable ) and put my nice new brake lever on (wonder how long this one will last? lol) Only ran it up the road as I had to run home and hoover cos we got visitors but it felt soooo much better

glad you've got it sorted faze

many thanks to u, and to BB of course