Over the years I've read a lot about oils and I know, I am sure of nothing.
One thing I do believe is that a air cooled motorcycle, one which uses the
oil as a gear lubricant also, is a different animal from an automobile
engine. I tend to agree that most any name brand oil is good enough for an
automobile engine, however an air cooled engine tends to break down the oil,
due to higher temperatures. In petrolium based oils this acts like a
distillation process removing components from the oil. In addition, the SJ
brands no longer contain ZDP to aide in handling sheer loads. For these
reasons and others, I will run synthetic in my motorcycles.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wester S Potter" <wspotter@jps.net>
To: <ardunbill@webtv.net>; "Joe Amo" <jkamo@rapidnet.com>;
<bigsid@webtv.net>; "marco" <bk185@lafn.org>; <bjgayle@aol.com>;
<gillette@aiinc.com>; <LITNMAN@aol.com>; <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2000 8:02 PM
Subject: Re: Winter Upgrades/oil
> List,
>
> I was asking questions about oil several years back at one of the race
meets
> on the salt. One of the people in the group was from an oil company or
had
> some connections with one. He made the statement that he had never seen
an
> engine be damaged by using a particular oil. He was very concerned about
> the uneven expansion of metals ... i.e. an aluminum piston in a cast iron
> block, or improper clearance allowing for expansion when the engine was
> assembled, and felt this was a major cause of engine failures. He had
> examples of various cars with problems at that meet and explained the
> reasons for the failures. None of the failures were lubrication related
but
> rather heat and expansion or stupidity related. What he said made sense.
> His comment was to the effect that the Big 3 automakers were delivering
> engines to a large group of people who are brainless about engine
> maintenance ... how often do you see an engine destroyed through
ignorance?
> Mostly it's either getting them too hot (lack of sufficient coolant),
> running them with no oil (never check the dipstick), or severely abusing
> them by over-revving the engine for extended periods of time ... all of
> which were examples of the metals actually expanding rapidly at different
> rates and seizing up because of that. He said that racers think they know
> everything about building engines but when the pro's do it the engine runs
> all day. Unfortunately most of the engines on the salt only run for a few
> minutes and he blames improper warming of the engine before a run for the
> bulk of failures.
>
> Reminds me of the comment I saw recently about the oil shortage ... hope
I'm
> not re-telling what you've already read;
>
> People never check their oil until it's too late.
> Unfortunately most of the crude oil is in Oklahoma and Texas ...
> And all the dipsticks are in Washington D. C.
>
> Wes
>
>
>
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