Oil leak, help me diagnose this problem

[ebradsha]

Recently I had my bike (2005 ZX6R) serviced (oil change, new filter, oiled chain, etc, etc etc.) and a couple weeks afterwards some nice weather came around so I took my bike out on some nice empty backroads. After blasting around the county I got back home and noticed that oil was smearing around the side of my engine cover and when I peered behind the fairings, more oil seemed to the splattered against the left side of the engine.

I've uploaded some pictures of the oil (my bike takes synthetic oil):

http://www.filestance.com/0226081123.jpg
http://www.filestance.com/0226081124a.jpg
http://www.filestance.com/0226081124.jpg

After seeing the oil smeared on my bike, I remembered that at one point during my blast through the backroads I stopped at a stop sign and a bit of oil smoke emerged from the front of my bike. It stopped after about two seconds, and I figured it must have been caused by some brief rain that I had ridden through. However, now that I'm paying more attention to the bike, I can sometimes notice a faint burning oil kind of smell when I ride.

Any idea what's going on with my bike? Should I immediately stop riding the bike and have a mechanic take a look at it? Did the shop overfill my oil? Any insight would be much appreciated

I don't want to damage my bike :-/

[kc10maineiac]

Yes, immediately stop riding the bike until you can determine what is the cause of this. From the pictures I can't really tell where the oil is coming from. Of course there are 3 spots you want to check first...The oil filter / oil cooler...the oil pan (unlikely as its on the bottom of the bike) and the fill port. It is possible that the shop did over service with oil, actually the most likely cause...and unfortunately the worst one. If I were you I would take the bike back to the shop and have them look at it (of course free of charge) As I have seen posted several time in here... a lot of shop mechanics dont take as much pride in their work as they used to. It won't be long before I have a shop opened up, and rest assured each bike will go out with a 100% guarantee. Good luck to you on this.

Jason

[gammac]

Drop the belly pan and have a look. You didn't over do the chainlube? Check around rocker cover gasket.
gammac

[Hammerhead]

If you don't even do the simple things like change the oil yourself, you are totally at the mercy of whatever ham-handed dolt the shop pays peanuts to do the work before they charge you another 600% for his services. Possibly he poured excess oil down the side of the moter while filling (best case scenario) or neglected to tighten or possibly stripped the drain plug or oil filter cover bolt. If it was overfilled (another numbskull screwup common to dealer minions) the excess will be puked into the airbox and end up running down on to the motor to be turned into smoke and spatter as the motor heats up and wind blows through the fairing. If the bike was not leaking or smoking before you took it to the dealer, call them, make them pick it up and fix whatever they fouled up.