In a bid to stop the vast quantity of oil escaping my clutch, I've bought a new but very old stock clutch cover gasket. I've got something in the back of my mind about soaking it in oil before fitting it, am I right?

I sometimes smear a bit of grease on them ,and clear DIY silicon works well if you don't have a gasket .....

Make an extra wide / thick gasket froim cereal packet, paint both sides with blue hylomar and allow to nearly dry before fitting.

Is is a faulty gasket or distorted case that is causing your prrsnt leak?

I'm wondering if the case is a bit buckled. it used to be a drip, but since I've been testing the bike it's really coming out in a hurry.

What would you do - make a thicker gasket, or get the casing faced maybe?

You could try a bead of silicon about 2mm continuous, but let it go off before offering up the cover.

The standard seal slightly greased and the cover shoud fit thight.

You can check your cide case by placing is on a glas plate if the

the side case is only slighly wrapped you can mount a big sheet of

grindpaper for metal with duct tape on the side on the glas surface.

Then you might grind the side case edges with water and rotary movement

to align them again, (this works only if there are one some tenth of mm to align).

Might sometimes be a problem too, (I had this issue), check the drain screw for

the clutch oil, mine must have got a hit from the stones and was slightly bend

so the head of the srew did not seal the drain hole proper.

If you've got your cover off, try laying it on a flat surface and looking for daylight under it or sliding paper under, should show any problems

Cool, plenty ideas there. It will be worth a fortune by the time I get it finished!