Leaking oil: big deal, or small deal?


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Syscrush
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Re: Leaking oil: big deal, or small deal?

Post by Syscrush »

Sharpie66 wrote:Could it really be this simple?
Plenty have done it. Note that despite those shiny hose clamp covers, the hose clamp adjuster will still be visible to anyone looking closely at your oil cooler plumbing. Decide for yourself if that's a concern or not. Note also that they're available in a variety of colors, not just red and blue.
Phil in Toronto
A cool guy deserves a cool bike, a dork needs a cool bike...
Pics of Perry, my '79.

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herdygerdy
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Re: Leaking oil: big deal, or small deal?

Post by herdygerdy »

When I replaced my oil lines with (blingy) braided steel jobbies back in '08, I did them with excellent help from my local Earls fittings shop.

1. Using dremmel, carefully cut the old fittings off and clearly marked the old lines left and right and which alloy end fitting went where.

2. Went to Earls and selected the braided steel hose. (They also had black nylon stuff that looked very much like OEM, but I wanted it a bit different). They then cut the hoses cut to length of the old ones.

3. Returned home with my 4x end fittings and the new hose and fitted them up in place (no clamping at all at this stage). With no clamps or suaging done, I could easily rotate the end fittings in the end of the hose into the correct orientation in relation to the locations on the engine.

4. This is the really important bit. Put some coloured tape around the ends and draw a line with a Sharpie across both the tape and the fitting, so they could be perfectly lined up back in the correct orientation once they are removed.

5. Returned to my friendly Earls folk with the hoses and explained what was needed (they get this all the time). They suaged the ends back onto the new hose with the lines, er, lined up, and I was good to go. Not a hint of a leak and job done in a couple of hours.

If I had not done Step 4 thoroughly, it would have been a very different result, esp. as the steel braided lines sure don't like being twisted. (I was also fortunate that the Earls distributor is not far from my home.)

You get the idea I am sure, and I think much cheaper and satisfying than store bought jobbies.....

Enjoy! Cheers...Tony 8)

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Syscrush
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Re: Leaking oil: big deal, or small deal?

Post by Syscrush »

herdygerdy wrote:When I replaced my oil lines with (blingy) braided steel jobbies back in '08, I did them with excellent help from my local Earls fittings shop.
Do you have any pics? I'd love to see them!
Phil in Toronto
A cool guy deserves a cool bike, a dork needs a cool bike...
Pics of Perry, my '79.

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Syscrush
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Re: Leaking oil: big deal, or small deal?

Post by Syscrush »

After having this system in place and ridden in a variety of riding scenarios and weather conditions, I have a bit of an update to share.

The short story is that I love this setup, although my results are more qualitative than quantitative. I don't have any kind of temperature gauge on the bike, so what I go by is:
  1. Sound: some ticking noise when below operating temp.
  2. Idle speed: when the bike gets hot, it idles higher, when it's cold, it idles lower.
  3. Smell: I can smell the hot oil & some occasional smoke when the bike gets hot.
And by those 3 qualitative measures, the bike keeps much cooler in hot stop & go, and gets up to operating temp much better in cold weather. I believe that the big cooler is helping to dump heat when required, and the t-stat is helping to protect against over-cooling.

After a short warmup period of ~2 minutes (I warm up on the road, not sitting at idle - so this is after riding about 2 blocks in a busy urban setting), the choke comes off and idle is a steady 1200 RPM. I've had that consistent 1200 RPM idle in temperatures from about 10C to 33C, which covers more than 95% of my riding.

I don't know if it's overcooling at sustained highway speed in cold weather as the few cues I have don't really work on the highway, but I am seeing very stable operation from the bike overall since doing these mods.
Phil in Toronto
A cool guy deserves a cool bike, a dork needs a cool bike...
Pics of Perry, my '79.

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Syscrush
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Re: Leaking oil: big deal, or small deal?

Post by Syscrush »

daves79x wrote:It seems that after much searching and not much finding, your post could be retitled 'Using Oil'. All the more leaks you've found wouldn't amount to a thimble full in many miles. I'd really focus on just how much oil the engine is USING, not leaking, and decide if it's within acceptable levels.
We have a winner!

This post was the first thing I thought of when I got word that the rings are bad.

Good call, Dave.
Phil in Toronto
A cool guy deserves a cool bike, a dork needs a cool bike...
Pics of Perry, my '79.

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