A: Oil Pipework Oil consumption

nigsey

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Has any body checked the oil used on their twin . I have no oil leaks apart from the crank case breather to which has been extended to the rear pillion foot rest hanger cannot seem to seem to stop oil from leaking out when stopped about 1 inch dia puddle on the road. I have routed the breather pipe under the engine. would it be better to go upwards with the breather pipe but the route would not be easy . For the last 5000 miles i have been using fully synthetic mobile one 0/30 with the high content of ZDDP with no restrictors in the barrel feeds and no metering wires in the rocker feeds. no smoking on the over run or normal running . would you say that 500 miles per pint is ok . I think most of the loss is going on the road via the breather any ideas
I have just changed my oil and put Castrol Classic XL 20/50 in my twin, I haven’t run it yet but wondering if it’s too thick having just read these threads. I live in the colder north so maybe should have used something thinner.
 

robin stafford

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Hi I dont know what the bench mark is for a cold start is mine Yesterday was 8 seconds from firing holding a fast tick over to see the oil return start ,. only when it starts to tick over say more than 2/3 mins that oil starts to comes out of the crankcase breather when it is revving more than 2000 or so I cant see any oil
 

Monkeypants

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There's an optimum level for Zddp. There are also various forms of Zddp.
1100-1400ppm seems to be about ideal. More is not better, in fact it seems to reduce protection.
One very expensive oil that claimed extreme protection due to very high Zddp levels(2200ppm), did not do well in testing. It turned to smoke when the scar tester was lightly loaded. That oil was a Redline Synthetic product, one that many fussy owners of vintage bikes were using.
Of the 87 oils that were tested, only 4 had worse results.
One of the four was Duckhams Classic 20/50.

Glen
 
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Monkeypants

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I made sure to send some in for testing.
Vr1 20/50 conventional racing oil gave good protection.
Vr1 synthetic did not.
The tester, Jim Comstock, is not fond of VR1 as he feels it oxidizes too quickly, or did in his Norton. Nortons run a lot hotter than Vincents. His Norton is quite hotrodded so it would likely run a little hotter yet,plus it has high cam loading
He had to admit that vr1 conventional put up very good wear protection numbers.
It does have fairly high friction, as do most conventional oils. That higher friction can be helpful in the Vincent, which tends to be slow in warming the oil.


Glen
 
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Michael Vane-Hunt

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Are you still using VR1 or have you switched to something better? I like it because it is easy to find and I have probably done 40,000 miles. Used a Casterol before the VR1.
 

Monkeypants

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I think when the engine is on tick over the returning oil being pumped over the heads and leaking down the rockers and push rod tubes explains why nothing is going back to the tank dispite the return side of the pump being double the size so the crank case fills up an oil comes out of the breather. I still think that I need to slow the amount of oil to the rockers
When we stayed with the Kirkers in 2007, Tim Kirker was working on a problem he was having with oil fouling the plugs.
At the urging of a Clubmate,he had removed the joggle wires.
The bike started to produce some smoke and foul the plugs.
My recollection is that he put the wires back in and both problems went away.

Glen
 

Monkeypants

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Are you still using VR1 or have you switched to something better? I like it because it is easy to find and I have probably done 40,000 miles. Used a Casterol before the VR1.
I'm still using the Vr1 in the Rapides and the other old bikes.
Castrol has some good products as well. If in the UK, Castrol Classic xl would be a good one.
Castrol GTX, which is almost free at Walmart, is a very tough oil. It does have very high friction though, so Ill stay with the Vr1 which offers nearly as much protection but lower friction than the GTX.
In the big engine I'm using Royal Purple HPS 20/50.
That is for the high lift cams. The VR1 conventional would likely be fine, but the Royal Purple does have higher load bearing ability.

Glen
 
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