oil: leaks, measurements, weight, etc

 The other day was one of the best days of my life. It was sunny and i
got on my bike and the seat was hot from the sun. First time ever for
me (bought it in autumn). That's it, that's the story.

I rode around and loved life from behind the handlebars until i
started practicing my emergency stopping. I didn't end up locking up
or going down - worse! I stopped fast enough to let my wake catch up
with me and i smelled burnt oil. So i lied, *that's* it, that's the
story.

I put the bike up on my rube-goldberg stand -- a phonebook under the
kickstand and a prayer against earthquakes and curious kids -- and my
little view window showed 0 oil. Yuck. I had it changed and,
presumably, filled by the $tealer$hip just 3 months ago, so i figure
i've been burning oil for a while.

Everyone and their enemy has the same prognosis - a leak, a ring, and
you know the rest. Fixing it is a whole other issue i'll get into
another time.

For right now, i'm just thinking i *need* to get some oil in there
before i ride again. Sure that might not be for a while, but i have
time to work on it now and i will.

My best idea is standing the bike up, checking the level, and finding
it empty - if not, i wont do anything without hearing from someone. So
assuming it's empty, i'll fill it up with .... some amount .... of
oil. According to the manual, a suzuki volusia would love some 10W-40
and that's what i got (valvoline synthetic, in case it matters - not
"energy conserving" or whatever, as recommended by calsci.com). Still,
assuming i have to replace what's burned off, i need some way to
measure it.

I know i can check how much is in there by running the engine a proper
moment, letting it rest 3 minutes, and then checking (with it
perfectly vertical). I'm reasonably certain that's a good way to go
about checking if i've arrived, i'm just not sure how to get there.

Thanks!

-c

p.s.
My manual demands 10W-XX oil, but would a 5W-XX be better?

 c wrote:

Just hold it upright (if you don't have a center stand and don't have
a helper, some rope and a couple of trees or parked cars will do the
job) and add oil until it's about in the center of the sight glass.
Crank it, run it a bit, let it rest three, and then top if up if it
needs more.


Depends--if you're somewhere cold then 5w may make starting a little
easier and may get you lubrication marginally earlier, but on the
downside if you've got a leak then it's going to leak faster.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

Did your oil pressure warning light ever come on?

Like other substances, oil expands when it's hot, and contracts when
it's cold.

If I change one of my Suzukis' oil, before storing it for the winter,
I warm the engine up so the old oil will drain out easily.

Then I refill the engine while it's still warm, shut it off and wait a
few minutes and check the oil and adjust the oil level in the sight
glass.

Next spring, when I roll the bike out of the garage, the oil level
won't be visible in the sight glass.

What is up with that? The oil is cold and occupies less space.

So I add oil to the *cold* engine until it's up to the correct level
in the sight window, and go for a ride.

When I get to the motorcycle hangout, I check the oil level with the
engine hot, and the oil level is too high, because the hot oil has
expanded.

Expansion and contraction seem to account for the appearance that my
Suzuki is 1 pint or more low when the engine is cold.

Suzuki has always used an oil pressure warning light, and I have never
had it come on even when my engine was 1.5 quarts low on oil.

But my Yamaha has a low oil level warning light instead of a pressure
switch. If the oil level gets a pint low, the oil warning light will
come on when I'm going uphill.

 On Jan 1, 3:38 pm, "βÎ�τΕυϊΑςς" =

It actually never did. I only checked it in the sightglass for the
hell of it.


That's what i did - there was no oil in the sightglass whatsoever. I
put in a quart of oil (very slowly, like 1/3 the bottle every 10
minutes) and didn't see any change in the sightglass. Today i hopped
on and had a good ride, about 40 minutes, mostly highway. Got off, put
it on the propped-up stand (phonebooks this time) and the sightglass
was half full of dark, dark oil.

Did i burn the oil?


I getcha. Sounds like something to keep in mind.


Are you saying it doesn't really function that well? When i dropped
the bike a few weeks ago, the light went on. I should look into how
the monitoring works.


Thanks for the input.

 
I just went and checked it now that it's cooled. Empty. No trace of
the ugly black oil. I'm confused.