How did that happen? Scoundrel's guide to DIY vehicle maintenance for brain-donors

[scoundrel]

Oil changes: not my favourite way to spend time. Unlike most previous bikes I have owned, my recently acquired Kawasaki doesn't leak, isn't dropping to bits and hasn't got a dent in the petrol tank. It's chief attraction is that it is nearly 25 years old. Usually I change the oil every three thousand miles and top it up meanwhile; on my old Superdream and on my previous Kawasaki GT550 (ex Addison-Lee despatch bike) this almost amounted to an oil change in between, they leaked so much. I had just passed 2,000 miles on this "new" one, including a lot of motorway miles, when I noticed the gear change was getting very stiff and notchy; this is a classic warning sign of oil grade deterioration, because on four stroke bikes the sump oil lubricates both the pistons and the gearbox. So I let it out and sure enough it was thin as water (engine still hot of course) and blacker than midnight in a mineshaft. Clearly when you don't have an oil leak, you need shorter oil-change intervals...

Having been bikeless for nearly three years due to lack of funds, I've got a bit out of practice on oil changes. In addition, Kawasaki, even in 1989, favoured the sight window for oil measurement, which I have never liked. I have always preferred a dipstick. My method has always been to measure the oil exactly and add the precise amount: for example I used to think "St Ivel" after the powdered milk brand when changing the oil on a Honda Superdream because if you change the filter as well it requires 5 pints.

But the first time with a new bike you don't know and the only thing you can be certain about is that the book will be wrong. This is where if I had had considered the matter I would have invested in the dearer oil brand (Castrol GTX Magnatec is fine for most four stroke bikes) merely because the oil has a green dye and shows up well in a sight window. Instead I saved £10 and bought Comma semi-synthetic, which is a perfectly good oil; far better than the oils which were generally sold back in 1989 when the bike was made. To compound my error, I started by finishing off about 1.5 litres of Rock Oil Guardian semi-sythetic I've had since Adam was a lad, because I wanted the container bottle for taking my used oil to the recycling centre.

The trouble with Comma is that it is extremely pale, an extremely light beige. By the time I woke up to the situation, I had put nearly 5 litres into the bike, and there were nothing visible in the sight window, merely because the surface was far above the window. I had previously added 1.5 litres of Rock Oil Guardian, remember, so I now had getting on for seven litres in the bike. A classic beginners' mistake.

At no time had anything been visible in the sight window. This is why I would much rather have a dip stick.

There is only one answer when you do a clottish thing like this; undo it. So I made a right bloody mess and let out about two litres; the sight window still had nothing to say. Naturally, I'd spilled oil all over the place after having been very clean on the site until then: I always put the pan for catching waste oil in a cardboard box lined with newspaper and shove the whole lot under the bike so that overspill is dealt with, but it is a different problem when you need to re-insert the sump plug while the oil is still pouring out like Niagara Falls.

Since the bike was clearly too full, I emptied the dump tray back into the original oil container for future use (I'm a cheap bastard) and let out some more. This time I struggled to get the plug back in for several seconds before I managed it and let out more oil than I intended, nearly overfilling the pan. That was getting on for three litres. But when I had that lot dealt with, I re-checked the sight window and could just barely see that I am full to the maximum. Since I didn't change the filter (which I do on every second change) it is the right reading. If you change the filter, run the engine for about 20 seconds, let it settle, then take the reading; you'll need to top up because you've now filled the filter and filter chamber as well. I still only have a very approximate knowledge that my bike takes about 2.5 litres without a filter change and probably 3 litres with a filter change. And now, the next morning, despite a bath, I can still smell the oil.

[Estreeter]

I'm here too help
Or better yet, I could come there and help If ya really want

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Since the bike was clearly too full, I emptied the dump tray back into the original oil container for future use (I'm a cheap bastard)

WTF Don't do it, That's asking for trouble

[NIN]

The oil will be perfectly fine either strain it through a few layers of old tights , no idea where you might get them ... ask GM
or don't agitate it & just leave the last quarter pint in the container

[billybunter]

I worked in the motor trade. Changing oil is vital, and always use top end oil. GTX is great oil. Change the plugs ontime too and use feeler gauges to get them right. Change filters too. Why skimp on a few quid when a new filter will give you more happy miles.

[scoundrel]

Good oil is never a bad idea, but it become more important the longer you leave it between service intervals. Back in my Superdream days, when I was "economically inactive" as they call it now for nearly 9 months, I had to watch every penny. At that time I moved away from Silkolene Pro 4, an excellent oil but expensive, and bought cut-price 20/50 own brand oil from Kwiksave at £2.49 a gallon; to compensate, I changed it over every 1,000 miles, even though I was topping up between times. You can get away with cheap mineral oils but only if you change them frequently.

I learned this lesson very painfully. In 1995, when I had only recently passed my full bike test, I acquired a Honda CG125. It was a single cylinder bike popular with learners and new license holders; my first four stroke bike and I never went back to two strokes. I used to ride it all the way from North London to Yorkshire in one hit, the first bike I could ride up the M1 without L plates to stop me; 63mph all the way. The owners manual and the Haynes manual both recommended 2,000 oil change intervals and in my innocence I took that to be gospel. It used to take 4 hours and twenty minutes door to door. I bought my oil, in one litre bottles, from Bikerama in North London; Silkolene Super Four, though I didn't know one brand of oil from another back then. But when Bikerama closed for business, I sourced oil from a shop on Holloway Road; standard 10W/40 Rock Oil, which I now know is only suitable for engine flushing.

So in it went and I rode flat out all the way up the M1, as usual. On the way back, I started losing power at odd intervals, then running normally again. It ran fine all next week so, on a blazing hot July Saturday, I decided to ride it down the A3 into Hampshire and visit Gilbert White's House and the Jane Austen museum. Cracking good ride until on the way home, the losing power issue cropped up again and just steadily got worse. The bike finally died near the Tolworth roundabout. The AA buggered about so much that it was over eight hours before their patrol reached me, by which time I had camped out in a pub and got much better oiled than my poor bike. Accepting their guilt for having taken so long that public transport was virtually shut down except for night buses, the AA gave me a relay which my basic membership did not normally provide and the bike found its way to a workshop near my lodgings in North London. When the mechanic opened the sump, three drops of ink black oil came out, and when he opened the top end, I had completely melted the piston. I paid £125 to Greenwich Breakers for a second hand engine to replace this carnage, and found when I unwrapped it that they had been half the price of anyone else for a sound reason; someone had bonded the sump plug to the rest of the engine using epoxy resin.

Life teaches hard lessons.

[billybunter]

I had a ford sierra that drank oil. I bought tesco oil because there was no point putting decent oil in. I scrapped the car in the end.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Good oil is never a bad idea,

Good oil is the only idea

I think you might remember these picture Scounds



My old bike, 2002 Honda VTR Firestorm Death Machine You might remember I sold it too my old neighbor. I only ever serviced it twice, used exactly what Honda recommended, A 10W-40 oil, though if I remember right a higher grade was recommended for warmer climates like ours.

My old neighbor still has that bike and if I remember it had some 65,000 kM on it and he's been using a synthetic oil If he is it seems too be doing it's job, when I visited him last year I took it for a burn into town and it still felt like new

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

Good oil is the only idea

I think you might remember these picture Scounds



My old bike, 2002 Honda VTR Firestorm Death Machine You might remember I sold it too my old neighbor. I only ever serviced it twice, used exactly what Honda recommended, A 10W-40 oil, though if I remember right a higher grade was recommended for warmer climates like ours.

My old neighbor still has that bike and if I remember it had some 65,000 kM on it and he's been using a synthetic oil If he is it seems too be doing it's job, when I visited him last year I took it for a burn into town and it still felt like new

I hear rumours that it gets warm in Australia sometimes. At the height of the summer, 20W/50 oil might be better,simply because it doesn't run as thin at high temperatures. I wouldn't run a racehorse such as this on Comma oil, though Castrol GTX Magnetec would certainly do fine. There's a case for running mine on 20W/50, at least in summer; it is a Kawasaki GT750, a really old-style air cooled 750 and air cooled engines run very hot. But Comma oil is what they always used at Chasbikes for their GT750s and they knew the model very well; in its day it was the transit van of motorcycling.



Classic A-B bike. I rode a delapidated 550 version of this bike to Italy and back, twice, and it did't miss a beat.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by billybunter

I had a ford sierra that drank oil. I bought tesco oil because there was no point putting decent oil in. I scrapped the car in the end.

I had an '65 Viva in which the oil pump was so worn that the oil pressure light came on when you went round right hand turns. Solution was to fill it up with gearbox oil and sell it to some poor fool.

BTW - anyone want to buy my Mercedes S Klasse?

[NIN]

After reading this thread, I thought it about time to check my cars' oil and it seemed to need a slight top-up

.... Guess who's gone & overfilled it

I'm gonna have to use it as little as possible till Monday