Which Oil do You use in your Vincent?

[daveinnola]

i .m a great beliver in mobil one any grade you can take it upto 750f (god forbid) and when it returns to a solid it has not lost one percent of its viscosity , i,v seen car engines (5 liter) run 60% low and it never gave a problem , but its clingabiltiy is whats got me sold , it will cling to parts alot longer than regular oils and that should be a big selling point on low use enginges , i noted that some people said shell rotella is good , yes great for marine deisels , thats why shell names its oils(after stars) they go as far as designing the oil for the type of engine , and rotella is for big slow enginges with a lot of blowback , it might be good to desludge a engine if you cant afford a ready made product though

 

[MikeMcCartney]

As a Chemical Engineering graduate, I must state this:

..I know absolutely nothing about oils as I took Biochemical Engineering as a major option!

HOWEVER..........take heart, all is not lost.... I use the straight 50 - weight oil sold by Harley - Davidson dealers because:

- Its viscosity is high when cool, i.e. when the engine is being kicked over and first started. The stuff is like molasses at 85 degrees F. That is when a good thick coating of oil is really needed; when the cam followers are grinding it out on the cams, the pushrods are grinding it out in their cups and the pistons are screeching along up and down inside the barrels. The thicker the goo, the batter.

- If Harley Davidson feel that their 50 - weight stuff is good enough for their air - cooled V-twins then it must, surely, be good enough for our far more sophisticated, better - designed, more modern, better - looking, better - performing and far more desireable air - cooled V-twins. Oops, that was a rather partisan comment!

- The oil smears on my concrete garage floor look better with 50 - weight than other types, and the stuff is so thick I can alomst peel it off the floor prior to its becoming soaked - in.

- Its detergent properties may prevent a buildup of sludge in the UFM.

- By using Harley oil I am justified in parking a VINCENT outside the local dealer's showroom in order to go in and obtain the stuff, with the result that half their employees will filter out to admire the machine. I will then have the opportunity to point out to them the various and sundry ways in which the Phils, when designing our fine machines back in the 30's, out - thought their American counterparts.

 

[daveinnola]

on the other hand you could run her on castrol R and leak at every pore and tell them thats the smell of victory boy.

 

[daveinnola]

but kidding aside no matter if its superoil or supermarket the machines were meant to be used and abused they were built with daytona beach in mind not pebble beach the present mind set leans to pebbles not daytona , taking the machine out of its design enverlope , just like phil vincent never intended his machines to be bought by people that were not capable of riding them to design machine capabilties , i dare say theres some engineer thats designing a electric prelube system and a electric drive system to rotate the wheels without moving it right now

 

[barrys]

oils

hi trev, i think you are spot on, with first the oil temp that the bike cant obtain! second the viscosity and the oil pump straining to push it through a felt mass ( filter) on a cold day! the wear that i have seen on the pump worm drive must largely come from this strain ,no wonder others have found felt in the major oilways at rebuild! pushed out no doubt by the thick mass called cold thick oil! lets face it loads of other old bikes have done megga mileage feeding the pump direct and filtering on the way back when its carrying all the debris ,any way merry xmas and good new year to you regards barry.

 

[ogrilp400]

Aircraft Oils

Dear All,
As A bloke who has been using his Norvin daily for the past 29 years I though I would add my two bobs worth.
I started using piston engine aircraft oil about 25 years ago. I started using it because it is high detergent and a 50 weight oil and mostly because I was in the airforce and working on aircraft so it was readily available for the right price. I was able to obtain a reasonable quantity before I exited the airforce so therefore am still using it.
I have found that it keeps the inside of the engine and the oil tank remarkably clean and as yet have not suffered any noticable wear. One point I have noticed though. I did an oil temperature test over a period of months and varying ambient air temperatures. It varied from less than 35 degrees C after 10 miles with an air temp of 12c, up to 55 degrees oil temp. after 400 miles with an air temperature over 35 degrees. This is not a very high temperature for oil and I had concerns that it was not reaching high enough to vapourise water and some contaminents. I then spoke to Mobil Oil but after showing surprise that I was running aircraft oil in my bike they seemed to think that it was ok at that temperature. I suppose big slow reving radials at high altitude probably don't get much hotter.
I change the oil at 1000 mile intervals but have been known to have that stretch to double that. I fill the tank at the oil change and do not need to add any more between oil changes.

Phelps.

 

[daveinnola]

you been nicking oil from the air force shame on you got any more ? this oil question is getting out of hand , and i think its fueled bye more than a couple of people that are not aware of what they are fooling with first a vincent engine is a high performance engine , its not meant to last fo rever its a high perfomance engine , you rebuild them becuse thats the way it is sure you can take out the stupid felt filter and go high tech and use a oberg filter but the bottom line is if your a user and not a investor , rebuilds come and go

 

[Monkeypants]

Well I don't know that a standard Vincent engine can be considered high performance. At a time when the Norton Manx was making 100 hp per litre, making 45 hp from one litre (rapide) is pretty low performance, however, as is said of the Cummins diesel, they(Vincents) make a lot of noise, and they do it for a very long time.
As MC engines go, these things are tractors, longlived, very torquey, slow revving and lowrevving. That why I like them.

 

[vapide]

I seem to recall a guy named Rollie who said much the same.

The results were collated and a phone call to Filtrate, led them to advise that `You need to be running a Straight 10`

 

[daveinnola]

there is a differance betwen 50 hp race and 45hp street its called keeping it on the megaphone or in its power band if you took a manx norton on the street its bhp would be about 30 hp in real terms i ride a 250 ninja at the moment and on a bad road ie real twisty high hp numbers dont mean too much