Put the handle bars straight, in gear,Take left hand on seat and pull it straight up and check the window,Its as easy as falling off a log.

I quit worrying about it with mine years ago. 2 quarts 15W40 or 20W50 at filter/oil change. Add some if it has been leaking more than it should. Add a cup or two if the top end gets noisy.

It's just an AJS or Matchless with crappier electrical parts.

We don't have a PCV valve on our bikes, we have a wad of screen mesh up in the head cover that keeps liquid oil splash out of the huff tube.  The huff tube runs straight down to the protected side of the air filter and then dumps the vapors back through the carb, with the ugly emulsified liquid ooze shite going down the airbox drain tube that we open up when we do an oil change.

Gross over oiling goes out the huff tube and down the airbox dump tube -- but apparently what the sidestand folks are saying is that our side stand levels are not resulting in any oil in the airbox.



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The HOT TEST is intended for you to know where your bike's oil level winds up while it is being ridden and while the oil is fully expanded.  Some of you are getting educated on where you oil really runs at, which is right below the oil shelf that protects the spinning crankshaft.  The oil shelf is right over the top edge of the oil window, so a full window of oil during the HOT TEST signals too much oil -- any air space seen in the window during the HOT TEST indicates the HOT TEST oil level is acceptable.  

Remember, a half window clear is the "ideal condition" and a full dark window is "fails test".   Don't let Ralfyguy go get you all confused again.

Frothing -- some folks are reporting bubbles on their hot test.  This is NEW and it is good information to know about.  

A few bubbles are meaningless, but real frothing is bad, it is liquid oil in bulk getting churned into an air filled mass by gears and cranks and suchlike stuff.  Frothing is not a few bubbles, it is a large mass of bubbles that slowly reduces and goes solid after you cut the bike off.

I have never seen frothing.   I use Rot Syn and I don't think it believes in frothing.   I do see a mist/rain of oil that makes judging the HOT TEST oil window level a get a flashlight and get down on a blanket on your elbows and study it for a few minutes event, but I know I have a partial window condition while the bike is running, so I am not overfilled.

What most of you are reporting is about the same thing I see (which is OK) with the exception of RL153 who is reporting a solid dark filled window during hot test.   He says he's doing the HOT TEST right, but something's wrong with his set up --- you don't set an oil window level just peeping over the bottom window edge cold on the side stand and then see a solid window of oil idling held vertical during HOT TEST -- not unless you are running forward controls or have a really bent side stand swing arm.



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So far I see nothing wrong with the "oil peeking over the edge of the window while cold on the side stand" trick -- providing you do your HOT TEST at least once and KNOW where your running oil level really is for the oil and oil window side stand level you are now using.

I think the folks who are going mid window or higher on the side stand are pushing it a bit, but so far they say they have nothing going out their huff tubes to their air boxes, so I cannot biatch that they are doing something stone evil to their bikes.  

(I wouldn't do it personally but Informed People making informed choices about their own bikes -- that is what this list is about)



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Froth people -- if you got real frothing you got an issue.   Froth is BAD NEWS as froth doesn't lube like solid oil does, the oil film is interrupted by the air content and you could be getting some contact through your oil film on your plain bearings up in the head.

Frothing is the original mass of oil getting bulked up with air bubbles, which increases the mass and puts more into the gears, which makes more froth which increases the mass yet again .... frothing is bad news and if you got frothing I'd change oil brand or oil levels or something to get it to stop.


Ball bearings -- would they care all that much about froth?  
(this is a question because I don't know the answer)

Looks a lot better than mine does.  Now that you got Ralfyguy out of your head do you still have any issues with your hot test?

Neat thing about the side stand method that you come to appreciate as your bike gets older and uses more oil is that when it gets low, you just rock it a bit towards vertical and if the window shows oil you KNOW you have enough oil in there.    

Actually you have more real oil reserve that a vertical person has when he's freshly topped up .....

You can roll towards vertical at any time and actually see your extra reserve of oil and KNOW you are in no danger of actually running low.


 


People who vertical, they have to worry when their oil gets low and they should, their bikes are in mortal danger if the oil shows low and quite a few engines around here have been hurt by unintentional low oil levels that resulted from a little bit of inattention combined with the use of the Suzuki vertical oil check method.   When I did vertical, I carried a quart of oil with me on any sort of trip and I had to use it several times ...

Just curious... do any of the SS people check the oil on their 4-wheel type vehicles on an incline or decline??  

I have no strong opinion either way, SS or vertical.  Actually use both methods off and on, but predominantly use vertical.  

Ralfyguy,

"Mortal Low" is when you use the vertical method but get real slack about doing the check (or your bike finally starts using oil and you didn't catch that it first started) and when you do do the vertical check you don't see any oil in the window at all.       aw shite !!

When you do go do the vertical Road Runner check and find you have to add nearly a quart of oil then you have been running at "Mortal Low" levels and have likely been sucking some air at the oil pump when you hit the brakes, etc and rocked the oil mass forward away from the pump intake.



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Now, why do our bikes just suddenly start using oil?  

We have had enough instances of pistons getting sudden galling (which puts the rings in a groove bind and causes mild smoking) to say we have that as an occasional issue that we can certainly point at.  

This is an "any mileage" issue completely apart from the 45,000+ piston slap which is pure and simple wear over time.

May I propose a theory for this sudden galling -- Serobot's Theorum, with some practical expansions.

Serobot (who has written the definitive Tech Post on the subject) theorizes that:

1/3 of the folks on the list have had a vac petcock go bad on them
1/3 of the folks who are just waiting for it to happen to them,
1/3 of the folks who (because of how little and how slow they ride) may never have it happen to them.   They never exceed the vac petcock trickle flow rate.

My extension on his theory is simple -- those that ride hardest will have the vac petcock starve their engine at speed and when their float bowl level gets low their mixture leans out which can cause their piston to overheat and gall or to cause rapid piston wear.

(or you name the screw up that flows from it, none of them are good news)

So, I say sudden onset oil consumption has an assignable cause -- that you had a vac petcock event at speed and "running lean" damaged your engine some.

Now, for reluctant confirmation of this theorum, we suggest a person who is a high speed rider, who has two Savages that both became NOTORIOUS oil users, who investigated oils in great detail to see if he could relieve his problems and he freely admits he has had high speed vac petcock episodes before that caused him to replace hoses multiple times and to put rebuild kits into his vac petcocks.  

Note:  he has recently totally rebuilt one of his engines twice and it is currently in great shape.   He now has a virgin test bed and as of now he is on alert to this potential oil consumption root cause.

Verslagen, when your rebuilt vac petcock craps out on your fresh engine bike for the very first time, keep a lookout for sudden onset oil consumption to follow soon thereafter.



           

DrunkenDwarf wrote on 08/10/11 at 21:51:41:

See, now I'm confused again...