Oldfeller--FSO
Serious Thumper ModSquad
Offline
Hobby is now "concentrated neuropany"
Posts: 12673
Fayetteville, NC
Gender:
|
Here is the full hot test that has been added to the original Tech oil level poll thingie. It specifies that you need to do the full hot test to your bike using your oil at your own maximum operating temperature so you can understand what 10-12 percent hot oil expansion does to your particular set up.
Yeah, do it at least once to make sure you are still fully good with your side stand check oil level (with your shocks, your side stand and garage level, etc, etc, etc).
WARNING NOTICE !!
Out of the window war and related side wars has come an important hot test to perform on your particular bike after you have picked your side stand oil in the window level.
The test is simple, after picking your handlebar alignment and resting condition, put your oil level stone cold where you want it to be for easy visibility.
Then ON A LEVEL SURFACE crank your fresh hot from a ride bike up, get it to a good idling rate (at least 1,000 rpm) and get somebody else to hold it straight upright while you shine a flashlight into the oil window with the bike running at idle.
Ideally, you would like to see an empty window -- but many do not. If you see more than half a sight glass on this hot run test, then you need to take out some oil !!
You know the window empties completely when you crank it cold, cause you have already done this test with the bike stone cold. What has changed is that your oil went from garage cold to engine hot -- oil expands when hot to the formula 0.0004 / degree F, so for a 250-300 degree F delta-T you get like a 10-12.0% change in oil volume.
10-12% is a significant enough change in oil volume for you to do the check again when the engine is full from just running hot.
On my bike I get just under half a window held upright when hot idling when I set the oil level to half a window on the sidestand with everything stone cold. I am lucky, what I see stone cold on the side stand is just about what I see on the hot held vertical test. You likely are not that lucky .....
You can't ASSume this works out this way for you, your garage isn't at the same degree of level as mine (mine isn't perfectly level) and my side stand is slightly bent and I use a sidestand adder magnet on the foot of my side stand and my oil expands like RotSyn expands (your oil likely expands differently).
You have to check your own situation to find out your hot expansion truth.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you see a full oil window when idling a fully hot engine held bolt upright. This would put you in danger of splashing oil with your crankshaft. You need a half window or more of oil clearance to the crank splash shelf with your worst cast oil expansion due to hot engine temperatures -- a full window of clearance is of course the "optimum desired" amount but many do not get this on the hot test.
|