What Oil?

You always get one! Ducati says use petrol oil, the oil companies say use petrol oil, but someone thinks that they know more than all of these minds put together. It is your bike so use what you want, but remember that the top diesel oil these days is a 5w30 and is left in the diesel car engines for up to 40,000 miles (60,000 kms) so why not go the whole way and do the same with your bike?

 

Awesome so no chance of me forgetting to torque my sump bolt up then!

 

I use this...............I change it every 4000 miles or every two years, whichever comes first.

I was told by the Silkolene rep about four years ago it is more or less fully synthetic.

SILKOLENE SUPER 4 10W40 SEMI SYNTHETIC 4 LITRE MOTORCYCLE ENGINE OIL: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike

And my sump plug, screen filter 'nut' and oil filter (K&N) are all tastefully lockwired..........

.....force of habit owing to a Guzzi dropping a sump drain plug out........and a diff drain plug coming loose.

 

A long(ish) read but worth it. See if you arrive at the same conclusions as I did at the end of the article with regards to oil in your motorcycle.

All About Motor Oil

 

I always thought that the higher reving nature and generally more torturous nature of bike gearboxes meant that motrobike oil needs long chain esters that have a high shear resistance to cope. Hence your average cage oil, petro, or diesel, is not up to the job and breaks down prematurely.

For Ducati's in particular, I've generally been told not to bother with fully synth etc., just go for bike formulated semi-synth but change often.

 

From a salesman !!! Really, its "more or less the same". It may well be excellent oil but that explanation is along the lines of " creationism, its more or less science"

 

Good point, so what about Turbos on 95% of today's Diesel engines. Some Turbos spin up to 280,000 RPM, a typical TD Car around 150,000RPM, I would imagine the oil would need to have a high shear point.

 

I once was in the back office of a major Porsche dealership in west London and you should have seen the mountain of warranty failed turbo units sitting in the corner.
That was when oil technology seemed to lag a little behind Porsche's marketing.

Turbos are hard on oil that's for sure.

Castrol gtx changed at the recommended mileage will look after you though.

 

Well....I don't care if it says it is Semi-Synthetic on the can or if it is really 75% or 80% Synthetic (which is nearly Fully Synthetic)....

..........as far as I am concerned it does the job OK and doesn't cost a fortune.

As long as it doesn't piss out of the drain plug because it came loose that is.....and who's fault would that be?

 

More than 20% would be optimistic. You can bet that whatever the law says about what you can describe something as will be roughly where the percentage is.

Care to guess why that might be

 

Whatever oil you decide to use the important factor is knowing when that oil has lost its lubricating properties and is no longer protecting your metal bits that are rubbing together. A good fully synthetic oil (like Mobil1 Delvac, Shell Rotella T etc) will protect it longer and at a higher degree than the lesser semi's and stuff like that.

 

No.......I don't care if it's 50%, 75% or 100%.......

It works for the mileage and period it is in there.

I also used Shell 20-50 in one of my Guzzis and added half a can of Wynns (the other half was used while building the engine from scratch, so that when it got fired up first time no damage was done.....it also stuck the bearing shells in place while I was building it).

Apart from really cheap crap oil and D*ckhams, a reasonable semi is OK if changed at sensible periods.

I have had many engines fail when using D*ckhams.....but then, they were A Series and Essex lumps.

 

But in a spinning turbo, the oil is not in a shear condition, as it is a high speed gearbox. There is a difference between shear and high RPM on plain surfaces.

 

Oil shear is the reduction of its viscosity over time. Turbos, oil pumps, cams shafts, gear boxes etc all contribute to an oils shear.

Have a read of the link I posted earlier. The guy who wrote put a lot of time and effort into researching oil and is a keen motorcyclist. It's an interesting and informative read.

 

Totally in agreement, but you have to be really sensible.

 

I'm not a fan of halfords, but just seen this 15/50 mobil 1 and the price is reasonable at £42.
www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductMobileDisplay?catalogId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=165507&productId=1233318&storeId=10001