3 stinking hours to change the oil on my bike!

tonycondon said:
3 hr oil change isnt bad. ive got about 6 hrs invested into trying to get a fitting for a power steering line removed on my car. back at it again tonight...
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What kind of fitting is it? It might be one of those ones that requires a special tool to get out, which is not unheard of on "modern" cars. My Excursion, for instance, requires one to change the fuel filter. It was not obvious to me upon looking at it that it required the special tool. Well, now it is, but it wasn't at the time. :)
 
Bill Jennings said:
Whoever put the plug in the last time over torqued it and stripped the threads. VERY easy to do on Japanese bikes, and a common thing to have happen. You MUST use a torque wrench, or have a VERY good feel for tightening the plug. Most of them are down in the 20-25ftlb range, which is easy to over do.
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Oh, I'm sure I did it. It never seemed quite right. **** happens.
 
ted what i need is an 18mm open end wrench. that seems to be somewhat uncommon. most sets ive seen have 17 and 19.

and yes i love it at jiffy lube when they tell you your air filter is dirty. well wow, it must be filtering the dirt out of the air, put it back in!
 
tonycondon said:
ted what i need is an 18mm open end wrench. that seems to be somewhat uncommon. most sets ive seen have 17 and 19.
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Wow, now that's special. Worst comes to worst I'll send you my 18mm wrench, but as I recall I got it in a $20 set of wrenches at WalMart. :)
 
tonycondon said:
what i need is an 18mm open end wrench
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Sears

tonycondon said:
and yes i love it at jiffy lube when they tell you your air filter is dirty. well wow, it must be filtering the dirt out of the air, put it back in!
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I went to one of those places exactly once for a oil change and they desperately wanted me away from the jeep while they did their thing - yea right like that was ever going to happen. With heroic levels of great self restraint I watched the guy (against my very explicit orders to NOT touch anything except the hood, oil drain plug, oil filter and oil fill cap) pull the air filter and look at it then turn around and explain to me how it looked somewhat clean however in reality it was actually severely past it's useful limits and I desperately needed a new one to the tune of $30. After listening to his long so called professional knowledge speal on the subject, I calmly told him I had just put the brand new $5 air filter in at the auto zone not 500 feet from where we were standing for a total engine run time of under 1 minute since new. He ran out of answers at that point even though he kept babbling. Professionals my tailfeathers. I've held wrenches in my hand for more hours in the last two months than that kid had had spent standing at the potty for his entire life.
 
i got the fitting off. one of the mechanics at the airport had a Snap-On 18 mm wrench. However due to previous attempts i had rounded off the nut enough that it didnt help much. however i borrowed this goofy wrench from my grandpa when i was home last weekend that did the job. I think it was called a "speed wrench" or something but it had a spring loaded jaw and the harder you torqued on something the harder it gripped. that with a big steel pipe over the handle did the trick and I got it off.

of course then I was able to confirm my fear that the auto parts stores had been feeding me full of bull---- that the hose they sold me would work. so i returned it and ill have to hit the stealership in the morning.
 
Tony, sounds like your local auto parts stores have been using this training:

fail.jpg
 
I was reminded of this thread when I once again did the oil on the race bike. This time it only took town hours, but I had help.
 
On the CBR, all I need to do is unclip a couple of those plastic "rivets" at the bottom of the bike, pop out the front shroud and pull the filter. Less than 1/2 an hour total. Then I got lazy, and just left the front shroud out. Takes longer waiting for the oil to go back in the bike.
 
I still have the bike. Really need to pull the carb off it and have it cleaned.
 
EdFred said:
I still have the bike. Really need to pull the carb off it and have it cleaned.
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Yup, if you want it to run you likely will. Pain in the six repair, too. By the way, there are four of those beasties to rebuild and synchronize. Thankfully the Scarlet Death Machine is fuel injected, so one less thing to break.
 
Luckily, I have access to some ridiculously high end cleaning equipment where I won't have to take everything apart, and be subject to putting it all back together. If I decide to put a target on my back for all the cagers. Though I may ditch the bike, and the Vette and get that new Polaris machine.
 
I dunno, both bike and Vette are quite capable. I don't know of anything made by Polaris that could do that much better.
 
EdFred said:
Though I may ditch the bike, and the Vette and get that new Polaris machine.
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Ditch the bike and Vette and get an Ariel Atom. It's what that Polaris wants to be when it grows up.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Ditch the bike and Vette and get an Ariel Atom. It's what that Polaris wants to be when it grows up.
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Polaris - $20k

Atom - $60k+ (unless the prices have come down)

Edit: They haven't. The 3S runs $89k
 
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steingar said:
Took me forever to get the #@%!%$!!#@%!!! plastics off to get to the drain and filter. 3 hours of lying on the garage floor to do a 20 minute job. and I can't even use synthetics to do it less often. The down side of riding a hot Sport bike. That and no room to wipe up all the oil spilled out of the filter, so it will smoke and smell like burning oil for a few days.
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You should buy a Yamaha FJR. It's hot sport bike that is comfortable! And it is far easier to change the oil on an FJR than it is on a lawn mower or VW bug! :goofy:

That way you save the three hours of lying on the garage floor removing plastic you will need to do a 5 minute job of changing a headlight bulb on your FJR! :mad2:

And for heaven's sake, don't break a tab on any of your plastic. They price that stuff like it was for an airplane!!!!!!! :hairraise:
 
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Changing the oil on the Concours is pretty easy but that's about it. Doing something like, oh say, changing the spark plugs is a hell of a project (which BTW the service manual wants done every 7,000 miles).
 
jesse said:
Changing the oil on the Concours is pretty easy but that's about it. Doing something like, oh say, changing the spark plugs is a hell of a project (which BTW the service manual wants done every 7,000 miles).
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Spark plug replacement every 7000 miles? Are they Russian plugs or something?

I've changed the plugs in my car about every 80,000 miles.
 
bnt83 said:
Spark plug replacement every 7000 miles? Are they Russian plugs or something?

I've changed the plugs in my car about every 80,000 miles.
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Yeah, it's pretty silly. The oil changes are supposed to happen at the same time. So whenever you change the oil you change the spark plugs.

Needless to say I don't follow the factory service intervals.
 
EdFred said:
Polaris - $20k

Atom - $60k+ (unless the prices have come down)

Edit: They haven't. The 3S runs $89k
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Renault makes a cool tandem three wheeler, I don't think it's available here though, you'd have to go to Europe, buy it and put 2000 miles on it before bringing it back.
 
bnt83 said:
Spark plug replacement every 7000 miles? Are they Russian plugs or something?

I've changed the plugs in my car about every 80,000 miles.
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Most modern cars have plug intervals of 100,000 miles because of emissions regulations.
 
jesse said:
Yeah, it's pretty silly. The oil changes are supposed to happen at the same time. So whenever you change the oil you change the spark plugs.

Needless to say I don't follow the factory service intervals.
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Yeah it's ridiculous, and the Concours has OEM Iridium plugs. Nothing particularly difficult about changing the oil but getting to the coolant reservoir to top it off is a two hour job to pull plastics. They should make SOME tasks easier than that.
 
EdFred said:
Polaris - $20k

Atom - $60k+ (unless the prices have come down)

Edit: They haven't. The 3S runs $89k
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I know, I was just dreaming. I'd like to test drive the Polaris sometime, maybe I'd be interested in selling the Mustang GT for one, although a car with roof and climate control is mighty useful.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Most modern cars have plug intervals of 100,000 miles because of emissions regulations.
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I don't replace car/truck plugs based on mileage, I change based on misfire. And when I do get a misfire, I replace both the plug and COP for that cylinder and party on.
 
Bill Jennings said:
I don't replace car/truck plugs based on mileage, I change based on misfire. And when I do get a misfire, I replace both the plug and COP for that cylinder and party on.
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I typically go on mileage and usually notice an improvement. Slight, but I'm anal about these things.

The Ford COPs have a life of around 80k-120k miles it seems. My Excursion had multiple bad ones when I bought it. Bought a sack of 10, replaced them all, trouble-free after that. I miss that truck.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I typically go on mileage and usually notice an improvement. Slight, but I'm anal about these things.
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I'm pretty anal about doing things on the bike by the book, but I'm also interested in max performance on the bike

The Ford COPs have a life of around 80k-120k miles it seems.
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Or less, my F-150 has ~110k on it, and I've replaced two so far. I've also not replaced the plugs on that 5.4 due to the plug shell/soft head threads issue. Since I know it's going to be a total pain in the ass, I'm delaying until I HAVE to replace the plugs.
 
Steingar, just FYI. You certainly can use synthetic oil if you choose. While it is true you do not want friction inhibitors like Moly, there are several out there that do not contain the inhibitors. Mobil 1 Racing 4T (10W-40)oil is pure synthetic and is designed specifically for your application. There are several others. I have been using Mobil V-Twin (pure synthetic 20W-50) for years in a wet clutch Harley and an Evo S&S.
 
ronnieh said:
I have been using Mobil V-Twin (pure synthetic 20W-50) for years in a wet clutch Harley and an Evo S&S.
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You can use the moto Mobil-1 at an increased price, or you can go pick up a jug of plain old red cap 15-50 at Wallyworld. Works just as well, saves cash, I ran it for years in my Streetglide.

Any motor oil that DOESN'T have the "energy conserving" stamp on the bottle will work fine in a wet clutch bike.
 
Myself and a lot of racer types use Rotella oil from Wally World or the local auto parts place. Either standard or synthetic. I've used the synthetic in my race bikes for years, lots of hard acceleration and never had a slip issue. Ran the standard Rotella in my street bikes for over 10 years. Waaaayyyy cheaper than MC specific oil.

Dan
'79 Dakota
Skybolt - Under Construction
 
ChemGuy said:
Myself and a lot of racer types use Rotella oil from Wally World or the local auto parts place. Either standard or synthetic.
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I've used that for several applications. I owned a Triumph that called for 5-40 oil, so I used the Rotella T synth instead of the expen$ive Triumph oil. Worked fine.

Same for my 4.3 Mercruiser boat engine, I use the Rotella T in it as well, good oil.

I just recommended the Mobil-1 red cap 15-50 for the Harley as that is the proper weight for that air cooled engine. I ran this same oil for 80kmi in a BMW oilhead boxer, did fine.
 
ronnieh said:
Steingar, just FYI. You certainly can use synthetic oil if you choose. While it is true you do not want friction inhibitors like Moly, there are several out there that do not contain the inhibitors. Mobil 1 Racing 4T (10W-40)oil is pure synthetic and is designed specifically for your application. There are several others. I have been using Mobil V-Twin (pure synthetic 20W-50) for years in a wet clutch Harley and an Evo S&S.
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Not disagreeing, just what I could get where I was at the time.
 
ChemGuy said:
Myself and a lot of racer types use Rotella oil from Wally World or the local auto parts place. Either standard or synthetic. I've used the synthetic in my race bikes for years, lots of hard acceleration and never had a slip issue. Ran the standard Rotella in my street bikes for over 10 years. Waaaayyyy cheaper than MC specific oil.
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When I used standard (non synthetic) cheap oil, after a few thousand miles the stuff came out looking like the effluate of an Ebola patient. I put in synthetic, the stuff comes out looking like it went in. I depend on my bike for my very life, get offs hurt. I view the extra expense of good oil as relatively cheap insurance. I've ridden bikes for hundreds of thousands of miles and haven't lost one yet. Not saying I wouldn't have lost one with regular oil, but you can't put a price on piece of mind. That, and the needs of the street rider are quite different that the racer.

Silly me starting an oil thread.
 
Actually Bill, I think technically Harley and most of the air cooled V-twin (S&S, Ultima, and others) call for a 20W-50. Having said that I would be shocked if there is any down side to a 15W-50. If the truth were known I suspect the red cap 15W-50 may be identical to the V-Twin oil except the price.
Rotella is a very popular oil in the V-Twin crowd and seems to give very good service. The price differential on a per year basis is just not enough for me so I just use the V-Twin oil.
Steingar, not sure what you mean by cheap non synthetic. Shell Rotella is one of the better oils on the market. What do you consider as a good non synthetic oil?
 
EdFred said:
Luckily, I have access to some ridiculously high end cleaning equipment where I won't have to take everything apart, and be subject to putting it all back together. If I decide to put a target on my back for all the cagers. Though I may ditch the bike, and the Vette and get that new Polaris machine.
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Get a Morgan 3-Wheeler. Or a BRZ/FRS and do a motor swap
 
Why would one use Rotella, with an additive package for Diesel Fuel, in an engine that burns gasoline? :dunno:
 
I can't give you the why but it is VERY popular. However Rotella has both the "C" rating and the "S" rating making it suitable for either engine. Also it does not have friction modifiers making it suitable for wet clutch operation.
"Bob the Oil Guy" did some analysis in motorcycle use and found the results as good as motorcycle specific oils. A better question might be why not?
 
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