Melted Starter Cover

Hey All. Had the bike up on the lift today doing general maintenance ... checking for loose bolts and other stuff, and I noticed the bottom left corner of my plastic starter cover was melted .... the spot closest to the "Y" pipe. Just wondered if anyone else had ever seen this. I don't know when it happened ... if over time or maybe one real hot summer day last year, but I was surprised to see this. Everything is seated correctly ... Kind of Strange.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

not on mine it gets hot down there
In fact i have never been able to get the dipstick out when the motor is hot!

But the plastic on the starter has not melted on mine

Exhaust leak ?

Ya, I thought that as well so I scoured that Y pipe and didn't see anything. I didn't take it off but I looked carefully all around .. took the chrome plastic shield off .. used a mirror as well, but didn't see anything. No hairline cracks in the Y and the welds all looked good and the two joints where the headers meet the Y are nice and tight. No pun intended, but it's baffling.

weak mixture at tickover?

Maybe reset TPS and synch throttles?

Ya, Good Ideas, Thanks. Last time I adjusted the valves and reset the tps was about 10,000 miles ago, 2 oil changes back. Last time I sync'd the throttle bodies was about 600 miles from brand new. Could be time to check the throttle bodies again. Everything else is great and it's been running really sweet so far during this early spring. Did the new plug caps right around new as well. It's gotta be running hot for that plastic to melt. Both pipes are the same color.

Mine did it to one of my covers. Michael replaced it with a spare last time it was on the bench. It hasn't done it again?

Ok .. So at least thats good to hear it happened to yours once. Hopefully it wont happen again. Maybe just a one time hot spot. I shaved down the melted corner and buffed it out and its only noticeable on the lift. Thanks Pete and lcjohnny