Won't return to idle/slight oil seep...

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I use an old cat litter tray as a catch tray plus an old hand towel underneath to catch any errant drips.

[Mikep328]

OK!  I'll use one of my darkroom trays!!

Totally unrelated...   Ted, the Clown Loach is one of my favorite tropical fish!!

[taysidedragon]

Whatever you do, make sure the bike is secure before working on the oil pump. You do not want the bike moving and falling over! If it's not on the centre stand put it in first gear and chock the wheels.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

OK!  I'll use one of my darkroom trays!!

Totally unrelated...   Ted, the Clown Loach is one of my favorite tropical fish!!

Until about five years ago my 5 ft tank had a shoal of 30 or so Clown Loach they are beautiful when young as they swim in a shoal becoming more solitary & nocturnal as adults.  I  have kept them since I was a boy of 9 or 10  only giving up tropical fishkeeping when the maintenance took up too much time. As you will know they are unusual as they have skin rather than scales. Huge variations in the banding as well. 

Your bike will be safer on the center stand at least until your side cover is off & the oil pump bolts partially loosened, if you have an assistant to then take it off the stand & hold it whilst leaning so much safer.

[Mikep328]

All good advice re handling the oil - a lot more came out than I was expecting so it was good to have a tray available!!!  Pump is off, back at the house and disassembled.  All Orings are very flat so I'm assuming the new ones Nurse Julie sent me yesterday - (and arrived today, THANKS!!!) will take care of the seep.

However...and there is always a "however," isn't there?  I saw something I do not like.  When I disassembled the pump, I found that the center rotor was installed with the alignment dot facing up BUT the outer rotor was installed with the dot facing down.  IOW, no way to align the dots to check clearance. 

I installed them correctly and checked the clearance, which is well within spec but this little error makes me concerned about all the other work that the (alleged) mechanic performed on the engine.  TBF, the engine sounds great and, for that matter, I don't know if the mech that did all the work took the oil pump apart or not.  All the engine work was done last year and the Orings on the pump appear much older so no telling when the mismatching of the rotors occurred.  Oh well, I'm confident it's OK and I'll mount it back on the bike tomorrow. 

Thanks again to everyone!!!

30 clown loaches, WOW!  I never had more than three!

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I did not in reality make any profit out of the Clown Loach but it did help subsides my hobby back in the day.
Small Clown Loach used to cost around £2-2.50 mark each & I would get a couple of free ones thrown in as they are so hard to count in a net.   Around three years later when I had grown them on to a good five- six inches in length they would fetch a decent price (over £20 each depending on size) from Wharf Aquatics who would always buy them off me - payment was by credit note. So the cycle would repeat itself.

I did very frequent 20 % water changes using pre heated/aged water to reduce the hormone levels in the water. I was told  a dominant fish secretes a hormone to reduce the growth of others in a small environment. This might be fake news - Roo would know if there is any truth in the story.

Back to the oil pump:-

A few member here have encountered oil pumps that have not had both dot marks facing outwards so it's not that unusual to find.

[Mikep328]

 Ah...OK.  Maybe Honda didn't worry about it either!   

[Oddjob]

So long as the dots are both on the same side Mike it's fine. IIRC the inner rotates anyway around the outer so the dot moves around the outer as it goes through it's cycle, eventually it returns to align with the outer dot then moves on again.

[Mikep328]

Well, the dots are now on the same side!   

[Trigger]

This is why you can never trust the previous owner. I bought a bike once that the owner said, it has had a total engine rebuild.
After stripping the engine down, found that the piston to bore clearance was anything from 1.5 thou to 2.3 thou, two piston rings in up side down, valves not seated, primary chain knackered, primary rubbers hard as nails, spring and washer on the wrong side of the oil filter, side cover gaskets glued on with bathroom sealant and the list goes on 

[Mikep328]

 Yeah, I can only hope the engine work was properly done.  The engine revs freely to red line through the gears out on the road with no odd sounds/behavior but time will tell.   

[Mikep328]

New Orings on the pump solved the seeping problem.    Reinstalled pump, went out on ride, took engine to the redline on several occasions.  I had left the side cover off to be able to easily see any seepage - there was none. 

[Nurse Julie]

New Orings on the pump solved the seeping problem.    Reinstalled pump, went out on ride, took engine to the redline on several occasions.  I had left the side cover off to be able to easily see any seepage - there was none. 

Great, I bet you're very pleased you didn't take the sump off now 😊😊😊

[Mikep328]

Yes, that's for sure.  If it hadn't been for advice here re other possibilities, I would have replaced that oil sump gasket...and still had a leak.  Thanks for the extremely quick shipping of the O-rings!