A: Oil Pipework Oil consumption

greg brillus

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Glen, I think you have been lucky with your earlier Mk 5 cams and followers.......The later ones do not last.......I got less than 2 years of racing the twin racer using Morris 40 weight castor oil, with twin start pump........the cams and followers showing bad signs of ware. Castor is supposed to be better than near anything in a roller bearing engine, so the cam/followers was very disappointing.
 

TouringGodet

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I just switched to Valvoline VR1 conventional based on the test results Glen has been referring to. I was using Brad Penn, but it is a bit lower in the rankings, plus it is getting harder to find in the stores. Glad to hear VR1 is popular up there with you guys.
 

LoneStar

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In the big engine I'm using Royal Purple HPS 20/50.
I switched to this oil as well, since it performed near the top and is available in the US on Amazon and Ebay at a reasonable cost.

Note, though, that Royal Purple makes several types of oil. Not all tested well, including some sold at higher prices than the HPS ("High Performance Street") variety.

Given the high wear that seems to afflict Vincent cams and followers, I think oil film strength is critical.
 

vibrac

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Glen, I think you have been lucky with your earlier Mk 5 cams and followers.......The later ones do not last.......I got less than 2 years of racing the twin racer using Morris 40 weight castor oil, with twin start pump........the cams and followers showing bad signs of ware. Castor is supposed to be better than near anything in a roller bearing engine, so the cam/followers was very disappointing.
Thats unusual, not something I have found although if possible I use SAE 30 Bean oil on the Grey Flash and the racing twin but I have stoped using it on my road Comet but only because of its scarcity on the road
I use it on the road in my 35 KSS and because I dont have lights the battery carrier holds a spare can of R and anyway its sacrilege to use anything else on a cammy. My only time I used a mineral oil in direct preference to R is in my Scott where I think Silkcoline 2 stroke is a cleaner burn
 

greg brillus

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I don't believe it was a fault with the oil at all, just the newer cams and/or followers are not hard enough, among other things.
 

roy the mechanic

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I have Terrys mk4's ,bought the springs to go with them. Tested the springs on a special jig affair, the results were shocking. the tester could not believe the seat pressures, were nearly 200 lbs too great. Cast your minds back, quite a bit, Vins used to have triple springs,very soon reverted to doubles! Had my followers d.l.c coated for peace of mind.
 

Monkeypants

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I switched to this oil as well, since it performed near the top and is available in the US on Amazon and Ebay at a reasonable cost.

Note, though, that Royal Purple makes several types of oil. Not all tested well, including some sold at higher prices than the HPS ("High Performance Street") variety.

Given the high wear that seems to afflict Vincent cams and followers, I think oil film strength is critical.
Re the Royal Purple, that is correct , the really expensive full synthetic that Jim Comstock had been using, tested quite poorly.
He was using the really expensive stuff to protect the high lift cams in his hotrod Commando engine.
When the cams and follower wore out at 25,000 miles, he started in with the oil testing. He learned that his oil choice was likely the culprit in the early cam failure.
Norton owners from all over the world sent their favourite oil to him for testing. The results were pretty interesting.
You will often hear people claim that all oil is the same as long as it has the appropriate API designation. This is not so.

One of the scariest results came from the Aeroshell oil.
This is a high Zddp product marketed for use in small aircraft engines, Cessnas and similar.
The oil turned to smoke as the first small increment of weight was added to the scar tester arm.
 

Monkeypants

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I have Terrys mk4's ,bought the springs to go with them. Tested the springs on a special jig affair, the results were shocking. the tester could not believe the seat pressures, were nearly 200 lbs too great. Cast your minds back, quite a bit, Vins used to have triple springs,very soon reverted to doubles! Had my followers d.l.c coated for peace of mind.
I used RD springs purchased from Terry. The use of RD springs in a Vincent is something that came from Dan Smith and John McDougall a couple of decades ago. John noticed that new Spares club provided spring lost their installed seat pressure after a few thousand miles.
The RD springs are made of the right stuff, so they maintain that pressure for a very long time.
I installed them at 105 lbs.
There is about 5,500 miles to date on the Mk5s and there arent any signs of excessive wear.
As Greg mentioned, there was a later batch of the Mk5 cams and followers that must have had inadequate hardening.

Glen
 

Nigel Spaxman

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I used the RD springs from Terry Prince with his lower valve guides and top collars. They had far to much seat pressure and that wore out my cams. I bored out the ET37 top collars so they would pressure the springs less. I also had to modify the ET24 inspection caps so the collars wouldn't hit them. I have wondered if John was getting weaker springs from RD because really I still have to much seat pressure.
 
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