Took my 07 roadstar out this morning and after about 80 miles, pulled over and noticed bike smoking. After looking around a bit, noticed oil spots on pipes, side cover and engine case. It appears to be coming out the breather inside the KN big air filter. Bike has 1750 miles, about 400 since dealer serviced the bike when I picked it up. Kinda has me stumped

is the crankcase hose still connected to the back of the filter? if so, that's part of the problem, the other is more than likely just a little too much oil. The crankcase needs to be vented but in stock it vents the oil fumes back to the air filter up thru carb and burn in combustion. control polution. if it's oil coming from the oil filter, than it's a bit more than fuems. most just use 4qts oil at a change and don't bother with the .3 thats left to put in.But a dealer is gonna go the book way. 4.3qt

can i just disconnect it or do i need to block it off somewhere?

Don't block it off.

To much oil in the crankcase.

only put 4 quarts in it with filter change.

Period.

Penguin wrote:
Took my 07 roadstar out this morning and after about 80 miles, pulled over and noticed bike smoking. After looking around a bit, noticed oil spots on pipes, side cover and engine case. It appears to be coming out the breather inside the KN big air filter. Bike has 1750 miles, about 400 since dealer serviced the bike when I picked it up. Kinda has me stumped
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You said dealer just serivced the bike with a K&N aftermarker filter.

Well i'd say the Yamaha srvc tech over oiled the filter post cleaning it which is why oil is dripping out of your ait cleaner housing.

You'r bike/motor with 1700 miles should not have any issues with that that much oil comming from breathing system /crankcase breather hose from valve cover unless it has major ring seal /blowby issues which isnt likely.

So i would remove the air cleaner housing and remove the K&N filter so you can remove the excssive oil from the housing, wipe off the outside of the filer itself,and do a general cleanup of oil from pushrod tubes/engine case/pipes etc.

BTW,a friend of mine with an 05 silverado with K&N cleaned it and also over oils it resulitng in oil hitting pipes and smoking etc.

He brought it over to me asking what was wrong and i showed him it was actually the red colored K&N filter oil so i pulled it appartim and he was good to go.

But as far as over oiling a K&N filter goes,the motor should have sucked any excssive oil from the filter media itself so you really dont need to do anything there in most cases.

But i would also add that if the yami tech extreemly over oils the filter and you finds it still dripping with oil when you remove air filter housing id reclean it and then apply proper /conservative amount of oil to the filter.

You can buy whats called a K&N FILTER CHARGER kit that includes the proper cleaning solution and filter oil too.

Use the filter oil very sparingly,for example,it toakes me approx 3-4 seconds to fully treat a K&N filer for an 06 R* with enough oil . It doesnt take much at all and i find inexperienced people (YES,EVEN A YAMI TECH!) over oil K&N filters which i am sure is what happend in this case.

Overfilling crankcase oil can also cause this problem BUT you would have to ovefill it by a excessive amount like .5-1qt or more to be litteraly blowing out that much oil into crankcase breather.

But you can put that theory to bed by simply properly checking oil which is to :

1-heat motor up with 10-15 min ride.

2-stop the bike and let motor idle for approx 30 seconds & stop motor.

3-Now wait 3 mins to let oil lvl stabilize.

Note,while waiting that 3 mins revove the seat and straddle the bike to holt it lvl.

4- post the 3 min wait period unscrew dipstick,wipe it off,then reinsert dipstick into oil tank lightly seating it on top of oil tank filler neck.

Noteont not screw the dipstick into threads of oil tank filler neck when checking oil.

Oil should be approx in center of XXX/hatched area on dipstick .

If oil is below lower XXX add a small amount of oil to get oil lvl to approx 1/3 -1/2 the distance from bottom of the the lower XXX marks on dipstick .

But dont over do it,too much oil isnt good.

Then post adding some oil take the bike for another short rids and repeat steps above to get most accurate oil lvl reading possible which isnt easy to do with the R*.

Now if oil lvl shows at the top of XXX marks or over that then its over filled and some oil needs to be removed in that case which ever way you want to do it.

Could quickly remove drain plug from oil tank to remove some oil,id start by removing 1/4-1/2 qt if oil lvl showed at top ox XXX marks or over that.

Then post removing some oil take the bike for another short rids and repeat steps above to get most accurate oil lvl reading possible which isnt easy to do with the R*.

Scott

Had the same problem with the '09 when I put a K&N filter on, I went down to the Hardly dealership and found a crankcase breather filter that will fit a 3/8 hose and routed the hose to that. I suspect the K&N draws more vacuum than the OEM filter, but not sure.

River wrote:
Had the same problem with the '09 when I put a K&N filter on, I went down to the Hardly dealership and found a crankcase breather filter that will fit a 3/8 hose and routed the hose to that. I suspect the K&N draws more vacuum than the OEM filter, but not sure.
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Well if its the case that the K&N filter design alows more oil vapor to be sucked into the intake side of motor in which case would result in more oil used then with stock air filer which you would eventually see if you checked the oil once in a while.

But i dont think thats the case,crankcase tube hooks to same approx spot on K&N as stock filter and other then at wide open throttle under most noraml riding cond the airflow the crankcase system sees from airfilter should be approx the same most of the time.

Like i said,i just saw the same issue on my bud's 05 where he oevr oils the filter post cleaning and had same issue this guy had here and even a bike wrech could over oil a K&N filter esp if he doesnt know what the heck he's doing .

And we all know most stealerships have wreches/techs that are always on the ball anfd know whats going on right/LOL!!!!!!/NOT!!!!!!

But it could go either way in this case weather it be over an over oiled K&N air filter or over filled crankcase oil which can be quickly verfied by properly checking the oil like i suggested above so he will know what to address 1st.

Could also collectively be an over fiilled crankcase and over oil K&N too,you never know!!/LOL!!!!

Scott

I really don't think that the K&N is over oiled. With the lid removed, I can see where the oil has run down the inside of the housing. Changed the oil, again, refilled w only 4 quarts. Now tomorrow's project is to get all that nasty oil off of the engine and pipes and try to clean up the housing enough to stop the mess coming out of it.

River wrote:
Had the same problem with the '09 when I put a K&N filter on, I went down to the Hardly dealership and found a crankcase breather filter that will fit a 3/8 hose and routed the hose to that. I suspect the K&N draws more vacuum than the OEM filter, but not sure.

What River said,and the problem goes away. Too much oil. I dont belive your bike Is immune from it because it only has 1700 miles on it. If a dealer put that much oil on ur kn filter.....id find a new shop. You didnt pay him so youd have to go home a re do it yourself! Mine still blows some even w just 4 qts. And theres NOTHING wrong w my bike. 4 QUARTS. Not a drop more. Just my opine!