Cam cover oil leak

[OVERSTEER]

Got a 2006 Fireblade, it's done 26 000km and has developed an oil leak through a hairline crack (needed to be x-rayed to find it) on the top left of the cam cover. Apparently the crack was caused by vibrations generated by wear on the cam runner, on the exhaust cam. The wear on the cam wasn't too serious, in fact it was fixable with some water paper, by removing the burrs/wear. The mechanic who's working on the bike used to run them on our national race series here in South Africa, and says it'll be ok for another 20 000km. Any opinions?

[Evilchicken0]

Are you asking honda for a new cam cover ???

Take the cover off clean it inside and out and finish cleaning with white spirit or nail polish remover (brake / carb cleaner) Then put a thin smear of araldite or the thinest two pack / superglue you can get.

Or buy another off ebay / breakers

[lorenzo]

I'd just be putting a smudge of chemical metal over it or scouring ebay( do they have an ebay.za or something similar?) for a new cover. As for wear on the cams, the surfaces are usually hardened to hell, if you can take out imperfections with wet and dry I'd guess that the hardened surface has been worn through.

[OVERSTEER]

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately the 2yr warranty is up on my bike. No Ebay here, gumtree tho. Breakers are reasonable too.

Spoke the mechanic earlier, he suspected the cam cover to be leaking/weeping 2 weeks ago and used 3 fancy sprays that highlight hairline cracks, but those showed no result, now 2 weeks after, the covers off again and apparently the x-ray did pick up a crack, which has been sent off to specialist welders.

My biggest concern now is the wear on the cam runner, which didn't look much worse than the regular wear on the other cam runners, but I'm sure the hardened section on the runner is just about poked. Once it goes I'll have to put on a 2nd hand head. With the mechanics racing history, finding a replacement won't be too difficult - will have the head tuned when cross that bridge.