Cant find oil leak!

After a hour ling ride parked the duke in the garage and noticed a drop of oil on the floor. I looked the engine over and checked around the base of the cylinders as that seems to be a usuall spot but no signs of oil there. I checked the oil sight tube and its fine. I then removed the chin spoiler and noticed where the oil was dripping from. It is the cluster of wires by the battery box door. Ive looked, looked and looked and have failed to find a place where the oil may have dripped/sprayed and no luck. i noticed oil on the inside of the spoiler but only where the wires touch it. The oil starts at the top of the red/maroon plug and is no higher. Ive attatched some photos so someone might be able to help. Thanks -Chris

time to chuck some talcum powder about and go for another ride.

Oil pressure switch on the rear of the front cylinder is one known leak, as is the starter motor o ring.

check your crank case breather, I was having a look at mine after reading the posts about the breather mod and noticed the retaining clip was not retaining the hose I also have a bit of gunk around that area

its the pipe that comes out of the top of the ignition cover. Your second pic has the ignition cover in it.

Nope. Not from there. I looked at the starter motor and didnt see any trails to where i see the oil on the wires. It seems to be contained to ignition cover side and only from the red/maroon plug down. I wonder if it could be traveling down one of the wires?

It can be a right bastard trying to find the actual site of the leak. Took me ages to finally pin down where my rear cylinder leak was coming from. Talcum powder really can help though. Good luck.

did you by chance have a recent valve adjust, thats when mine had the very same problem. Front cam cover leak was the culprit(improperly seated gasket)...thanks KTM dealer!
I fixed it myself, no leak now.

Oil dye + black light will find it easily.

good luck

Had the dealer check the valves at 1000 miles but none since then (only 3072 miles now). where might the front cam cover be located (Valve cover?). Thanks chris

yes, valve cover, upon removal of the front cover i couldnt find the exact location of the leak but a new gasket, bolt seals and center seal cured the problem. Possibly a under/over torque problem?? It's a bugger to change out/get to, i removed radiator and oil tank, might be able to remove airbox instead? Made it a good time to replace coolant and oil though...

Who changed the oil the last time?

Whom ever did allowed oil to flow out of the oil filter cavity onto the wire loom. It has migrated down to the chin fairing. The way to avoid this in the future is to remove the clip that holds the loom to the steel oil lines and move it out of the way before you remove the oil filter cover.

The oil your seeing at the top of the redish/brown connector is dilectric grease (put inside the connector to keep them from corroding).

Blast it all off with contact cleaner and do your own oil changes.

ok, i had this problem for a couple of years! it never showed up on the floor or anywhere i parked but everytime i took off the chin fairing, the wiring harness was always coated like this. id clean it look for a leak nothing.
turned out to be the oil site tube. it was split at the top fitting at the back side out of view. replaced it and its been fine since. the leak was so small that it would take a while to accumulate, but accumulate it did!!

it is not coming from the dieletric grease in the plug, ive heard that one before! unless you have a pint of something in that bad boy there is no way it would provide the amount in these photos, my SD was always coated like that. check that oil site tube!
in my case there never was a clear track of oil. it would leak out and mist in the airstream, as soon as i replaced the tube, the problem was gone, i hope its as simple as that.

Wasn't there a modification to remove the oil sight tube all together and get a dip stick? I've had the same problem with having a crack in the sight tube and leaking oil. I guess I should do a search.

Well if you read my post you obviously didn't understand what I was trying to explain or I was not making myself clear which has been know to happen from time to time.

There are two things happening in that photo to cause the oily mess and they can be misleading (providing as you suggested the oil sight tube is not leaking). Having said that, when my oil tube splt (on the back side) oil was getting several other places -frame, LH peg, boot. Hot oil goes everywhere especially when helped by a high velocity wind source.

1. Whom ever changed the oil allowed it to run out of the oil filter cavity onto the wiring loom where it is clamped to the oil lines. This oil gets down into the loom as it's a plastic spiral wrap and migrates toward the chin fairing resulting in all the oil you see on the wiring harness (below the BBC). I know this as I've accidentaly done this myself with the exact same result. So this explains all of the oil on the taped portion of the harness behind the chin fairing. Once someone (usually a mechanic that doesn't give a shit as it's not his bike) has done this the only way to clean it up properly is to remove the spiral wrap from the harness all the way up to and past where the oil filter cavity is and clean the wires and spiral wrap thouroughly with contact cleaner. If not cleaned up as I descibed, oil will continue to appear on the wiring loom as it's still present in the spiral wrap.

2. Now, the oil is not going to flow up hill (or in this case up the harness to the BBC). The oily residue that is present on the BBC is the dilectric grease used to prevent corrosion, over heating and eventually a fire in that connector. I know this as I've had that connector start burning on a bike I prevously owned due to lack of grease preventing corrosion, increasing resistivity, causing heat, resulting in a fire. It was a Honda if you can believe that. Now, ALL of the manufacturers use dilectric grease in the connector that joins the generator and the rectifier because of this potential. It gets a little warm and small amounts of the oil suspended in the soap base seperates and migrates around that connector reaching the outer surface. Road grime flinged up from the front wheel gets deposited on this connector making it look worse than it is. Again, completely unrelated to the motor oil down on the harness but because both are present at the same time it looks like they are related. They're not.

I dunno, I've had a couple cold ones, this reads like it makes sense to me. Hopefully it makes sense to others as well.