Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Oil ????

With the changes in technology and the advancements of chemistry today's oils are very different from those of just five years ago. It use to be conventional oil "organic, come from the ground, dead dinosaur"oil was all there was. Now...there's conventional oils, blends, synthetics, bio oils... just where will it stop... I have had several people ask what would be the best oil in or for my bike.... Now let me qualify my answer first... If it is "NOT" mentioned a specific brand of oil that would have certain additive that are needed for your bike ....Oil is oil is oil.... But which works best for you? When I first started doing oil changes on my Wing I only used 30 weight oil and changed it every 3000 miles.... Then I got doing some research and found oil is only changes for one or two reasons. It gets dirty or losses its viscosity..... Conventional oil will get dirty and loses its viscosity at about 3000 miles. That's a given... Synthetic Oil will never loses it viscosity and will get dirty. But, there are synthetic oil companies out there like Ams Oil that will test your oil for little to no charges and let you known when the acids are getting too high or the Ph is getting off and then advise you to pull the plug and do a complete change out. But, until then a filter change every 3500-4000 miles and a top off is all you really need (if you need a top off other that the amount of oil loss from the oil filter change then you have issues). Now, if you coming from the conventional oil side to a synthetic here are a couple of things you need to look at or do... Usually a synthetic is a lighter blends like a 5W-20 or a 10W-30. And because of its pure inheritance it will seep into areas trying to protect all of the metal parts its suppose to. So you could find little oil spots on the drive way or garage floor. NOT TO WORRY. If the bike has lets say over 30,000 miles on it and it not ridden all the time (you know the weekend warrior type)then a bottle of Marvels Mystery Oil will reinflate any worn or dehydrated gaskets. Today's gaskets are neoprene and the Marvels will swell them up like a balloon and the drips will stop (usually with in about 200-300 miles). As for the filter the smaller the microns the better. Most bike oil filters are just one size and that what we have to deal with.... I go about 10,000 miles between complete oil changes....And just change out the filter... Here is what you will notice: Your wet clutch will engage more solidly, you millage will improve (not 30-40%) but about 15 miles per 6.5 gallon tank. The bike will run quieter.The bike will run cooler (go through death valley, Las Vegas or Phoenix in the summer time and tell me that doesn't matter. If you decide to run synthetic stay 100% synthetic. Unless you decide to do a blend of convectional oil and synthetic... Look on the bottles and you will see some say blends and some say pure synthetic. The blends are mixed with conventional oil and synthetic. The synthetics are 100% just that synthetic. After running synthetic for a while, lets say 5-6000 miles here is a little safety feature that synthetic has that conventional will never touch. Let say you have a oil pump failure a complete loss of pressure.... You will be able to get the bike down the road and to a safe place and not have to abandon it on the side of the road.......

No comments:

Post a Comment