What a day, what a day ......

Yesterday I was scheduled to work the museum from 10-1:00 so I stuffed a sandwich in my leather and took the R-90.  Pulled wifey's car out, then the R-90 and rolled down the drive way.   Put on the gear and fired it up.

HUGE cloud of white smoke out of the port muffler and a second later a shotgun spray of oil out the starboard one.  WTF?  Rats, push it back in, kitty litter the driveway; oil is leaking out of the exhaust crossover pipe.  I pulled the 914 out.

Got to the museum and parked in the last space near the lawn and headed in.  Hello, hello, took a tour and turned all the lights and displays on.  Realizing my Ray Bans were hanging off my back pocket, I went back out and put my glasses in the car.  Two old guys rolled up and asked if we were open "Still turning things on, gimme a few minutes and yeah, come on in".  A minute later an office lady comes down from upstairs, "Did you drive that little blue car today?"  Yep.  "Did you park on the lawn?"

Nope.

Then the two old guys walked in.  First gear is not easy to find on the 914, clearly I missed it, the car rolled down the lawn and was stopped by a piece of phone company device near the road.

Anyway....

This morning I uncorked the oil pan drain on the BMW, OMG, WAAAAYYYY more fluid than necessary.  It was about 10% oil and 90% gasoline.  I change the oil at least once a year, so here's the question:  As the bike has two petcocks and two flat slide Mikunis, how did all this gas get into the crankcase?  I religiously close both petcocks before dismounting, keeps them from rusting shut.

914 issue is mine, now solved.  How did all the gas get through?  Unburned gas from start up?

Thanks, Dan

Choke left puller / push out?  I don't know how your choke works or if it even has one.

I left the choke pulled out on my 250 one time.  Went to drive and had really low oil pressure. Checked the crank case and it had a bunch of gs in it.  Drained it all out, changed the filter and replaced the filter and oil.  No damage done.

One petcock isn't sealing.  Which side had the white smoke?  Thats the bad one.

Or you're running so rich that you're washing down your cylinders with fuel and it's getting into the oil

At least you figured out the fuel smell problem!

Oh no, that's a different crisis.  =~ (   Now that all vehicles are less than 3/4 full, the smell went away.

Lets say a petcock is leaking, won't the needle valve stop it?

In reply to 914Driver :

If the needle valve was reliable to stop it they would never have fitted the petcock. What you have here is a double failure. either the float has sunk or the needle valve has failed, and the petcock doesn't seal fully.

Needle valves for gas shut off, even when not bad at all, can (not will, but can) be overcome from the head pressure of the gas tank being too full and a petcock leaking by. Used to be called "the Black Death". Did some damage to a 90's sporty I had for a bit, but I was blessed that it did not take it out. Glad ya caught it before ruining an engine. 
Sorry 'bout the rough day. 

Yep. Almost the same exact thing happened on a bike I had. It 'only' took me three or four times fishing pulling the tank and fishing the carbs out to get the multi-point petcock/carb failure all resolved. I have no interest in ever owning carbs again.

914Driver said:

Oh no, that's a different crisis.  =~ (   Now that all vehicles are less than 3/4 full, the smell went away.

Lets say a petcock is leaking, won't the needle valve stop it?

What sort of pressure release system does the gas tank have?  If the petcock has failed, and that has failed, the tank warming up could push fuel in past the needle valve.

When the bike is running the needle and seat assembly doesn't need to be 100% leak free.  The fuel is constantly being used.  When the bike is sitting that little bit of leakage eventually empties the tank into the crankcase.  Hence the petcocks.  If the bike runs fine I'd just rebuild the petcocks.

I'd pull both carbs, check the needle/seats and then weigh both floats. I've seen floats in older air-heads get a small pin hole near a brazed/soldered area and begin to fill up with gas. It's not common but does happen. 

Agree with lotusseven7.  I recently (like this past Monday) had to replace the float, needle seat and O rings in my Mikuni BST40 carb on my KTM because it was leaking fuel while running.

Thanks guys, pulling the carbs today.  Factory Bings have been replace by flat slide Mikunis, but same tests.  I ordered two new petcocks, I disassembled one and some of the cast nubs on the flip handle are rounded (this one is ~3 years old !)  I haven't disassembled the OE one on the other side, but will.

Drained everything.  New petcocks installed.

Removed & cleaned plugs, turned it over before reinstalling them.  Took it outside, on the side stand gas came out of the crossover pipe so I let it drain for a while.  
Back on the center stand it fired right up!  Smokey, white smoke.  Let her run until I thought things started burning off still got smoke.  I put my hands in the exhaust to make sure both plugs were firing, came back for a palm full of brand new oil.  =~ (

Will this burn off and the rings reseat or do I have bigger issues?

Very good chance that the oil is just residual in the exhaust system. Watch the oil level carefully, but expect smoke until you have ridden it hard enough to get the entire exhaust system hot all the way to the tip. You won't do that on the stand. Relatively small chance that the rings are hurt at all.

Time for an Italian tune up.  It will either clear up, or confirm that it's busted.

It will be fine.  Mufflers full.

Italian tune up = SeaFoam?  Or is it ice?

Italian tune-up=high speed blast with High test gas.  

Update:

Just got back from a 70-75 mph run down 4 exits, checked everything at a gas station, topped off with 91 ethanol free and came home.  It smoked for the first 5 miles, especially at low speeds, but seems OK now.  Once it cools I will do another pre-flight and give it a bath.

Thanks for the input guys!

spitfirebill said:

Italian tune-up=high speed blast with High test gas.  

I guess when I was taught to do the high speed blast just with the cheap fuel we had to run, we could have called it the hill billy tune up! 

My dad just always called it "blowing the carbon out"

He also thought me how to clean a carb on the car... get the revs up, and then slap the rag in your hand over the choke horn till it almost stalls. Do that a couple times, and it "might" clear a slightly plugged up jet. 

In reply to 914Driver :

Glad it all worked out good!