Suzuki 2 Strokes

I was sitting sipping my coffee this morning and just looked at the motor sitting on the bench. You know those times where you just kinda go inro a trance - doing all kinds or wrenching in your mind. I noticed something that I never paid any attention to before. The tranny vent tube has a barb fitting like a hose is supposed to fit on there. Makes me wonder why Suzuki didn't just use a plain straight tube as nothing fits there. Then I thought it would be neat to vent that to the outside with a hose. Then I thought there would be no way to do that without modifying the oil pump cover. Then I am drilling holes and cutting notches in my head. Then I remembered. I've been told before - I need a hole in my head. Then took another sip and woke up

I was wondering something similar yesterday and then I picked up two oil pump covers and they were different. One had a "tube" hanging down and the other was much shorter and was machine with a slight slot in it.

So I checked out the crankcases cluttering up the shop and realized that early cases had a short tube on the crankcases and later ones are taller. My deduction is that it acts as an oil separation tower and was changed to a taller one because the early design must have leaked a little. The pump cover basically sits down on top of that vent and the transmission then breathes through the slot machined in the mating face.

As the engine gets hot and cold it will breathe through that slot but it won't allow oil out unless it is overfull or a there's a gas leak from the crank chambers (usually either side of the primary gear).