Damn, can't fit that to the comet then
A: Oil Pipework Series D oil tank
- Thread starter Gary Gittleson
- Start date
I use 10/40 in my D. Breather in the standard position. I fill the tank so that the oil just touches the bottom of the block. My chain oiler is blocked off at the tank exit and I use chain lube on the chain. I get slight misting around the breather hole in the cap. I found if I filled the tank much above the bottom of the block, I would get oil running off the cap onto the top of the tank. It wasn't lot but more thsn misting so I lowered the level as above
David,
I made a simple splash shield out of thin aluminum and it may help a little. Less oil does indeed come out with less oil in the tank but it makes me a little nervous. Mr. Richardson says the capacity is 5 pints. That translates to 6 US pints or 3 US quarts. There's no way the tank will hold that much. I have it off the bike and tested it. At 1.8 US quarts, it's about one inch below the bottom of the filler neck. I don't I should have less oil than that in it. Two quarts seems reasonable.
As to the engine, it's not smoking and the top end is in good shape. Runs quite well. The one-way valve on the breather made a huge difference in oil coming out the usual places. The breather itself hardly produces any oil at all. I was thinking that piping the excess pressure (assuming that's what I have) from the tank to the engine should allow the oil that's carried with it to drop to through the engine and the excess air would be dealt with by the breather. I also think that one advantage of the D breather setup is that its source is high on the engine and less likely to carry oil than one lower down.
Thanks and cheers,
Gary
I made a simple splash shield out of thin aluminum and it may help a little. Less oil does indeed come out with less oil in the tank but it makes me a little nervous. Mr. Richardson says the capacity is 5 pints. That translates to 6 US pints or 3 US quarts. There's no way the tank will hold that much. I have it off the bike and tested it. At 1.8 US quarts, it's about one inch below the bottom of the filler neck. I don't I should have less oil than that in it. Two quarts seems reasonable.
As to the engine, it's not smoking and the top end is in good shape. Runs quite well. The one-way valve on the breather made a huge difference in oil coming out the usual places. The breather itself hardly produces any oil at all. I was thinking that piping the excess pressure (assuming that's what I have) from the tank to the engine should allow the oil that's carried with it to drop to through the engine and the excess air would be dealt with by the breather. I also think that one advantage of the D breather setup is that its source is high on the engine and less likely to carry oil than one lower down.
Thanks and cheers,
Gary
Gary,
I think your thought process has been good on this from the beginning. It is the little stuff that you don't want to get caught out on.
I only have a theoretical negative reaction to piping pressure into the crank case. It just seems so wrong! In reality it may be fine.
I don't think I ever put that much oil in a D oil tank, but on the C racer after a complete change I only used two quarts in the tank. I often ran with less. A two thirds full tank is what I designed for on the Egli frames I built.
Pat Manning is not here, but when I opened his D oil cap no oil is visible and I seem to remember that is what I did with mine. "Fill it until you just can't see the oil." It does sound a little odd, but I stuck a plastic flexi ruler down the filler and I hit the oil at 4" down from the top of the filler, which is about 2" down from the top of the tank. I will check with him also.
I think if you can fill it higher like Mcvette does, that is fine. I think more room in the tank is nice, particularly if you have some oil in the sump. You need some room in the tank for it. You might want to do some trial runs to see what you are comfortable with and some other D owners might chime in. I will ask Carleton Palmer who has been riding his D a lot lately.
David
I think your thought process has been good on this from the beginning. It is the little stuff that you don't want to get caught out on.
I only have a theoretical negative reaction to piping pressure into the crank case. It just seems so wrong! In reality it may be fine.
I don't think I ever put that much oil in a D oil tank, but on the C racer after a complete change I only used two quarts in the tank. I often ran with less. A two thirds full tank is what I designed for on the Egli frames I built.
Pat Manning is not here, but when I opened his D oil cap no oil is visible and I seem to remember that is what I did with mine. "Fill it until you just can't see the oil." It does sound a little odd, but I stuck a plastic flexi ruler down the filler and I hit the oil at 4" down from the top of the filler, which is about 2" down from the top of the tank. I will check with him also.
I think if you can fill it higher like Mcvette does, that is fine. I think more room in the tank is nice, particularly if you have some oil in the sump. You need some room in the tank for it. You might want to do some trial runs to see what you are comfortable with and some other D owners might chime in. I will ask Carleton Palmer who has been riding his D a lot lately.
David
Carleton Palmer! Give him my regards. You can remind him that we met a few times back in the 1970's. Thanks much for your thoughts.
Gary
Gary
I will. I talked to Pat Manning and he said that he rides around with it below the optimal level for the usual rides. He tops up at the end of a ride if hey plans to do a longer ride much like Mcvette mentions. At the end of a ride he assumes the bike's sump is empty, so topping up is not an issue.
I talked to Carleton two weeks ago and I think he is in Mexico right now. His D Shadow has the new steering stem installed and a coil over Works Performance shock on the front. He put a shortened Works coil over on the rear and he can't believe how well the bike handles now.
David
I talked to Carleton two weeks ago and I think he is in Mexico right now. His D Shadow has the new steering stem installed and a coil over Works Performance shock on the front. He put a shortened Works coil over on the rear and he can't believe how well the bike handles now.
David
It's time for me to post an update. I just took a ride of about 90 miles and the bike shows no signs of oil leaks! Kicking my heels!
So I thought I'd post the modifications.
1) I made a "carb slide" gadget similar to David's out of copper pipe by cutting a one-inch piece lengthwise in half, working the shape to fit around the return block in the oil tank and soldering a flat piece to one end. I then drilled a hole for a screw to fasten the device to the block at the metering screw hole. I used a short screw from an old Monobloc carb to hold it down.
2) I obtained a non-breathing oil cap from Coventry Spares
3) I drilled and tapped an old valve inspection cap to take 1/8" US pipe thread (npt), cut a short length of threaded brass pipe, opened the cut end with a drill bit and soldered a piece of brass tubing into that. I installed the modified cap and pipe over the rear exhaust valve. With that in place, I ran a piece of 5/16 rubber hose connecting the chain oiler outlet to the valve cap.
4) My bike is a D, so I already had the valve-cap breather setup. I have it over the intake valve on the front cylinder. I think it's supposed to be over the exhaust valve but I wanted it to be as high as possible.
5) The breather cap is connected to a one-way valve which in turn is connected to a long rubber hose which exits behind the rear axle.
So far, as I mentioned, everything is dry. Even the breather-hose exit is dry. So is the valve lifter cable area.
So I thought I'd post the modifications.
1) I made a "carb slide" gadget similar to David's out of copper pipe by cutting a one-inch piece lengthwise in half, working the shape to fit around the return block in the oil tank and soldering a flat piece to one end. I then drilled a hole for a screw to fasten the device to the block at the metering screw hole. I used a short screw from an old Monobloc carb to hold it down.
2) I obtained a non-breathing oil cap from Coventry Spares
3) I drilled and tapped an old valve inspection cap to take 1/8" US pipe thread (npt), cut a short length of threaded brass pipe, opened the cut end with a drill bit and soldered a piece of brass tubing into that. I installed the modified cap and pipe over the rear exhaust valve. With that in place, I ran a piece of 5/16 rubber hose connecting the chain oiler outlet to the valve cap.
4) My bike is a D, so I already had the valve-cap breather setup. I have it over the intake valve on the front cylinder. I think it's supposed to be over the exhaust valve but I wanted it to be as high as possible.
5) The breather cap is connected to a one-way valve which in turn is connected to a long rubber hose which exits behind the rear axle.
So far, as I mentioned, everything is dry. Even the breather-hose exit is dry. So is the valve lifter cable area.
Sorry about the test. I posted my update yesterday but it didn't seem to work. I'm guessing the GDPR changes wrought a little havoc. Now I do indeed see the update, so I guess it was in limbo for a while.
Hi Gary, I've been using this mod on a well ridden twin for many years with no problems at all. It certainly makes overflowing oil tanks a thing of the past. Cheers, Stu.
I would imagine that most of us will have overfilled the oil tank once, and then suffered the consequences, but surely it is not the sort of error that one repeats that regularly that we have to install overflow modification working in much the same way as a toilet cistern does (or used to before they made them with an internal overflow system). I would not really appreciate being the next motorcyclist along the road following someone that had just vented all of his excess oil over the tarmac.