Head oil feed leaks on head side.

[Grim]

Hello, as the title suggests, I have an oil leak and it appears that the oil feed head attachment on the left hand head has loosened off a bit. 

The problem I have, is that if I tighten the head attachment (long 14mm nut) then my oil line kinks, as the fitting that attaches the line to the head does not appear to be a swivel, or at least, it is not swiveling. 

So I cant tighten the line to head but as it just kinks the line. Where these ever swivel joints?

 

[p6x]

9 minutes ago, Grim said:

Hello, as the title suggests, I have an oil leak and it appears that the oil feed head attachment on the left hand head has loosened off a bit. 

The problem I have, is that if I tighten the head attachment (long 14mm nut) then my oil line kinks, as the fitting that attaches the line to the head does not appear to be a swivel, or at least, it is not swiveling. 

So I cant tighten the line to head but as it just kinks the line. Where these ever swivel joints?

 

I had the same oil leak problem. The nipple gets loose.

Loosen the flexible connection first, holding the nipple. Then tighten the nipple that feeds the oil into the head. Following that, tighten the flexible onto the nipple. This is a metal to metal sealing, and the nut on the flexible will rotate.

Edited Saturday at 05:23 PM by p6x

[Grim]

Thanks, I guess mine has seized a bit, as the line is kinking when I tighten that nut back onto the nipple.. I sprayed on some plusgas, I was holding the line with pliers and it still rotated with the nut. I'll leave it to stew for a while.

[PhillipLarsen]

I had the oil leak at both heads ( 2004 Ballabio) where the fitting attaches to the head. It was not the oil line to fitting. If you check out other reports I think that is where the leak is most often There was an aluminum crush washer between the fitting and the head. In my case that was where the leak was. It was all original 20 years old. Looked like some kind of thread sealer or Locktite on the threads. I removed the fitting and glad I did not just tighten them up as the aluminum crush washers were quite distorted from wiggling around. I replaced the aluminum washers with copper washers and used some locktite to ensure threads sealed as well. No more leak so far.  

[Grim]

Thanks Phil, I will do the same, my issue is I cannot turn the Flexi line nut off more than half a turn as it turns the line and distorts it.  I am hoping I can free it off but it doesn't feel like a swivel attachment. Was it on yours?

[Tomchri]

I tvisted the line in oposite direction, and managed a straight oil thight line. Tvisted sounds horrible, nice and easy.

Cheers Tom.

[PhillipLarsen]

On mine the nuts on the oil line were a hard to turn initially but used a little wd40 and loosen/ tighten and they loosen up. If only one is giving trouble you might consider disconnect all three ends of oil line and take the fitting with the oil line off on the difficult one and then work on it on the bench 

[Grim]

Blow torch to the rescue!  Yes they do move eventually but channel locks, pipe wrench, nothing was moving it until I got it red hot. 

Thank you for the advice!