Oil Leak - oil filter bottoming out?

[Greg Lanz]

I have had my 2003 Vmax since 2009 with nary an issue. Last fall I was in the midst of moving and drove the motorbike to the new house/garage. I think I went over a speed bump a bit fast and it felt like it bottomed out. A few days later I checked on the bike and for the first time ever there was a small patch of oil under the bike near the front of the engine. As it's Canada and started snowing I kind of forgot about it until spring. About a month ago I did the usual oil change using Amsoil synthetic 10-40 and a Bosch 3323 filter, same thing I've been using for years. When I went to tighten the oil filter it seems to be bottoming out on the threads as I could only tighten it about 1/4 to 1/3 of a turn after the gasket seats against the block. I took the filter off and then unscrewed the double ended bolt that the filter screws on to to inspect for damage. Nothing found so I put it back on, made sure the gasket area was clean with no signs of damage and put on a different new 3323 filter. This time I was able to get it threaded on about 1/2 a turn after the gasket seats and the oil leak seemed to go away. I took it for a short test drive stopping every couple miles and no leaks however since then the leak is definitely back and I'm really not sure where to look and what the issue might be? I can't see how bottoming the bike out at under 10 mph would have caused anything like this but it's the only thing I can think of that happened. I'm also not sure how the oil filter is not able to be tightened fully as I've been doing oil changes on cars, trucks and motorbikes for decades and never saw anything like this before. Or am I looking in the wrong spot? The oil definitely seems to be coming from the front of the engine and seems to be dripping down from the oil filter, but maybe there's a crack somewhere up higher that I haven't found?

 

[Greg Lanz]

So yeah, I'm guessing at some point they made a change to the oil filter and it now will not seat fully. I bought a cheap but physically deeper Motomaster oil filter from Canadian Tire and it has plenty of clearance and the oil leak stopped. I should have been able to figure this out earlier but at least it's a solution

 

[Fire-medic]

Congratulations on having caught it.

 

[Greg Lanz]

Thanks, as usual it seems so obvious in retrospect but I've been using these same oil filters for years but the must have redesigned them recently. I tried a couple of them with the same results, but thankfully an easy fix although I lost a couple liters of Amsoil to the garage floor