1980 xs400 unable to find gasket

[justcallmeV]

It seems I am cursed to never ride my bike for more than 2 weeks, except now this is a big problem. While I was riding the other night the breaker cover (ignition cover, distributor cover, cylinder cover whatever it's actually called) fell off and I didn't notice until I got home. Now I have exposed ignition which obviously is bad but also there seems to be oil that flows through there (it leaked onto my boot and the trans cover). I've done a ton of research about this part of the bike over the past few days and come to the conclusion that I'm in an extremely unfortunate position. From what I can tell the 79 and earlier xs400 sohc models use points ignition, and the 82 and later models use some other kind of electronic ignition, while only the 80 and 81 use solid state ignition. The problem I'm facing is that I can only find parts for other models and not an 80 or 81, I only found 1 listing on ebay for a cover that looks identical to the one that used to be on mine (pics attached). I can't find any information on if there's a gasket that goes with this cover or not, I believe there should be given there's oil yet diagrams I can find showing this taken apart make no mention and I can only find gaskets for 79 and earlier models. If anyone can give me more info on this I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Revvy Kevvy]

Buy some gasket paper and cut a new gasket, this is how I solved the same issue when I had this. It took about 20 minutes to cut out the new gasket.

More curious is the oil flowing through it, I was running mine with the cover open when I was fault finding and no oil is comming out at all. I dont know why it would have oil going into it as this is not going to be good for the electronic (or points) system at all which should be dry of oil and water except for a little bit of oil on the felt wick for lubrication of the points arm.

 

[CaptChrome]

No gasket is installed between the cover and the cam cover/cylinder head on the 1980/81/82 SOHC bikes.

 

[JPaganel]

The diagram, unfortunately, isn't great.

What it shows is that there is no gasket under the "breaker cover".

There is, however, a seal - that's #25 on the diagram. Oil Seal, Sd-Type 93102-23190-00

This is what the stuff under the cover supposed to look like:

I love the fact that the rotor is listed as "Unavailable In Price Book 3F3-81673-10-00". You most likely don't need the rotor, I just think it's funny.

Anyways.

What I am getting at is that there should not be oil in the ignition cavity. There is a seal that should be keeping it out.

I don't think you can get it from Yamaha direct any more, but a few places online seem to list it.

 

[CaptChrome]

If you can't find the seal online, the seal size is 23, 35, 5.1 (ID, OD, Cross Section - all in mm) which you can use with industrial seal suppliers to find one that works.