Engine design VS Lubrication

[ZGRider]

Originally Posted By: Jimbo
Originally Posted By: ZGRider

...
1. Is the engine air-cooled or liquid-cooled? (heat breaks down oil.)
2. Does the engine share oil with the transmission? (trans. gears shear oil quickly.)
3. Is it a high RPM engine? (consistently over 10,000 RPM)
4. Does the engine have high-pressure plain bearings or low-pressure roller bearing? (Roller bearings require little lubrication)
5. Does the engine have a history of lubrication issues? (Shovelheads, Ducati Bevel-drives, Honda VFs, Norton Commandos, old Triumph Twins?, etc)
6. Placement of the camshafts (BMW airheads have the cam in the bottom of the sump, submerged in oil vs OHCs far from the sump)
7. Dry-sump VS Wet sump? (Dry-sumps generally have greater oil capacity than wet-sumps because they have external oil tanks with no limiting volumes.)
8. Oil capacity of the engine? (Yamaha YZ & WR 450 engines hold just 1 qt of oil -- won't take long for that to break down)
...


I'm surprised no one added,

9. Wet or dry clutch? (Friction modified oils or moly additives may cause slippage of wet clutches.)

Lets review my 1990 Yamaha 200cc single.

1. Air Cooled - hard on oil
2. Shared engine and trans oil - hard on oil
3. Not high rpm - easy on oil
4. Roller crank - easier to lubricate
5. No history of problems - easy on oil
6. OHC - harder to lubricate
7. Wet sump - hard on oil
8. 1 liter total capacity - hard on oil
9. Wet clutch - specific friction requirement

Yamaha recommends API SF mineral 20W/40 above 40F and 10W/30 below 60F, changed every 3000 miles.

All of these should work fine.

15W/40 HDEO, such as Rotella T, $3 q (ChinaMart)
5W/40 Rotella T synthetic, $6 q (ChinaMart)
10W/40 four stroke motorcycle oil, such as Castrol Actevo Xtra 4t semi syn, $5 l (on sale)

I just aquired the bike, old and possibly neglected. So, I am giving it an initial "flush" with 15W/40 HDEO, which will be followed by the Castrol.



Whoa, whoa - I had a 1990 Yamaha 250cc single-cylinder street bike and it had horrible cam problems. I can't remember the model number, but it had a weird kind of trunk behind the seat.

Edit: found it -- a Yamaha SR250. Bad cam problems from oiling problems

 

[ZGRider]

Originally Posted By: boraticus
Just curious, but when was the last time anyone here ever had a problem with any relatively late model (post 1970's) motorcycle engine due to a lubrication issue?




Sorry Boraticus,

But the early (1983 to 1986) Honda VF V-4s had terrible problems with oil starvation to the cams. The cams wore very quickly and ultimately wore out the cam lobes and followers. The problems were blamed on improper heat-treatment of the cams, lack of top-end oiling, and faulty cam/follower geometry. Honda redesigned the cam geometry and changed to gear-driven cams in 1986? This is just one of several well documented engine lubrication issues in the last 25 yrs.

I get your point and it is valid -- most late-model bikes have few lubrication issues, but there are some exceptions.

 

[StromRider]

Originally Posted By: ZGRider
Originally Posted By: boraticus
Just curious, but when was the last time anyone here ever had a problem with any relatively late model (post 1970's) motorcycle engine due to a lubrication issue?




Sorry Boraticus,

But the early (1983 to 1986) Honda VF V-4s had terrible problems with oil starvation to the cams. The cams wore very quickly and ultimately wore out the cam lobes and followers. The problems were blamed on improper heat-treatment of the cams, lack of top-end oiling, and faulty cam/follower geometry. Honda redesigned the cam geometry and changed to gear-driven cams in 1986? This is just one of several well documented engine lubrication issues in the last 25 yrs.

I get your point and it is valid -- most late-model bikes have few lubrication issues, but there are some exceptions.



I had one of those, a 1983 750 (V45) Interceptor. The top end was a total disaster. It wasn't just the cams, even the bearings were scored, on both sides. I don't know if it was related but the tensioners were junk too. I am truly glad to be rid of it, there was always something wrong with that bike.

 

[boraticus]

Yeah, I recall the issues with the VF750s. I had a Yamaha 750 Seca at the time and rode with guys who had problematic VFs.

As you pointed out, it would be wishful thinking that there would be no failure whatsoever. Relatively speaking, the number of failures since the late 70s is down considerably than it was only a decade before. I continue stand by my point that today's engineering, technology and manufacturing processes combined with better lubrication products have significantly reduced oil related engine failures in every aspect of internal combustion engines.

If I recall correctly the VF 750 and 500 were Honda's first V-4 street bikes introduced into North America. What made the VF engine's failure so significant was that it was a Honda product. A name synonymous with enduring quality of motorcycle engineering and manufacturing. An almost unheard of failure for the motorcycling giant.

 

[ZGRider]

Originally Posted By: boraticus
Yeah, I recall the issues with the VF750s. I had a Yamaha 750 Seca at the time and rode with guys who had problematic VFs.

As you pointed out, it would be wishful thinking that there would be no failure whatsoever. Relatively speaking, the number of failures since the late 70s is down considerably than it was only a decade before. I continue stand by my point that today's engineering, technology and manufacturing processes combined with better lubrication products have significantly reduced oil related engine failures in every aspect of internal combustion engines.

If I recall correctly the VF 750 and 500 were Honda's first V-4 street bikes introduced into North America. What made the VF engine's failure so significant was that it was a Honda product. A name synonymous with enduring quality of motorcycle engineering and manufacturing. An almost unheard of failure for the motorcycling giant.




Agreed on all counts -- Modern motorcycles have significantly less engine problems than those of the past. What is amazing is how many of those with problems were Hondas. But, then remember the Goldwings, NR750s, VFRs, etc. I have personally seen original Goldwings go 250,000 miles without engines ever being apart.

Well maintained, modern engines should last a very long time.

 

[Silk]

Originally Posted By: ZGRider






BTW, I have seen more than my share of Triumphs and Nortons seized tighter than a drum and if that is not a lubrication issue, I don't know what is. We like to think of those bikes fondly, but remember those were some of the most hated bikes in the world when the first Japanese bikes came ashore. They leaked oil, they siezed regularly, they had poor electrics, horrible carburation, flexing crankshafts, valve guide problems, and wet-sumped often. Those engines still had Whitworth bolts on them?


Obviously we live on different planets.I rode British bikes exclusively for many years - not just Triumphs,but Norton,BSA and Matchless twins,and singles as well.The only one I seized was a modified BSA single....and I suspect it was my 19 year old inexperience that was to blame.The only Triumphs I saw seized had oil issues for sure....like none.BSA twins used to rip the barrel off at the flange,usually after high comp pistons were fitted.Most of my bikes were old at the time,from the '50's and early '60's....the lastest model ones were a '72 BSA and '73 Triumph,but engines only.

And what's wrong with Whitworth? Especially coming from a country that hasn't moved onto metrics yet.

 

[edhackett]

I can't help believe that the Honda VF problem was intentional. Build a great bike, insure that it will wear out in two years, and then sell you another one.

First, they didn't provide enough flow to the head, second, and this is a biggie, the oil going to the head was unfiltered! The bike had an oil filter, but only oil to the crank passed through the filter. This was such an engineering blunder that it couldn't have been a mistake.

Ed

 

[RonH]

There was a time in the early to mid 80s I think Honda could design a motorcycle on paper and have it on the dealers floor in 30 days with no testing in the real world. They had some real "winners". I too was caught on that VF750 interceptor particularly after all the magazines raved best motorcycle ever built and Russ collins said something like "should last 100,000 miles or more easy". Well Russ, slightly off by like 95,000 miles.
The only motorcyle besides that I ever had lube problems with was a 1978 KZ650 I bought new and rode around 160,000 miles in about 12 yrs time. There was so much sludge in that engine oil wouldn't even drain unless the engine was hot. 10w40 Castrol GTX changed every 2000 miles if anyone cares. Engine was pretty shot needless to say, but that sludge was rediculous. Even at that the engine ran good and had no camshaft wear or anything, just tired and 1/2" of black goo throughout the entire engine.

 

[boraticus]

Originally Posted By: edhackett
I can't help believe that the Honda VF problem was intentional. Build a great bike, insure that it will wear out in two years, and then sell you another one.

First, they didn't provide enough flow to the head, second, and this is a biggie, the oil going to the head was unfiltered! The bike had an oil filter, but only oil to the crank passed through the filter. This was such an engineering blunder that it couldn't have been a mistake.

Ed


Correct me if I'm wrong.

Planned obsolescence is an North American concept. It was started in the domestic auto industry in the early 70s and has successfully been implemented in the manufacturing of just about everything else we now buy, from snow throwers to clothes washers and dryers.

The Japanese do not embrace that philosophy.

To make the suggestion that Honda, who introduced a revolutionary, liquid cooled, four cylinder V engine to motorcycles would plan it's premature failure is absurd.

 

[Steve128]

Originally Posted By: ZGRider
Originally Posted By: boraticus
Just curious, but when was the last time anyone here ever had a problem with any relatively late model (post 1970's) motorcycle engine due to a lubrication issue?




Sorry Boraticus,

But the early (1983 to 1986) Honda VF V-4s had terrible problems with oil starvation to the cams. The cams wore very quickly and ultimately wore out the cam lobes and followers. The problems were blamed on improper heat-treatment of the cams, lack of top-end oiling, and faulty cam/follower geometry. Honda redesigned the cam geometry and changed to gear-driven cams in 1986? This is just one of several well documented engine lubrication issues in the last 25 yrs.

I get your point and it is valid -- most late-model bikes have few lubrication issues, but there are some exceptions.


The great camshaft crisis in 84 about off killed enthusiasm for the
VF... as you know every stop gap measure was tried in curing the
problem but the real culprit was Honda's short cut in machining steps
of the cam bearing blocks... they dropped the line bore step and
machined the cam bearing blocks separately... this resulted in mix
match of clearances... in short the cams flopped about... hard coat
damage soon followed... For a cure Honda... in 86... went back to the
more accurate and expensive method of line boring the cam bearing
blocks... You can note the external difference in the head design...
the 84's & 85's rubber valve cover gasket is flat... whereas the 86's
rubber valve cover gasket is half circled covering where it was line
bored...

Honda was typically silent for a long time and this led to all sorts of home
cures including better top oiling kits... shorten oil change intervals... larger
gapped valve clearances... installing new cam tensioners... auxiliary
cooling fans kits... etc etc etc... but none of these address the root cause...
Only after Honda took a lot of stick did they finally go back to the timely
process of line boring the cam bearing blocks on the head so the
tolerances complimented each other...

In the void of official guidance Mechanics went to great lengths to address
the symptom but failed to establish the root cause... the hard coat damage
was still miss matched cam bearing blocks... the evidence they needed to
look at carefully is the fact the edges of the cams fails first... their pet
theory of a lack of oil would make the center fail first...

Honda would never modified their engines by depleting critical oil
form the main galley and take a chance to starve the main bearings
just to reroute oil to the top end... it's a kin to robbing Peter to
pay Paul... there's only so much oil an engine will pump...

Publicly American Honda was silence... then they blustered refusing to
acknowledge they had a problem... but in private they we working at a
fever pitch to establish a root cause... but it was the owners who
blamed it on all the wrong things and then some... and you can see it
continues today...

Naturally Honda's final corrective action was to sell owners a new line bored
head... at cost I think... all in all Honda's great camshaft crisis almost kill
the publics love affair with the V4...

Unfortunately for the V65 engine... all the years 83 through
86... were affected by the short cut at the factory and thus
don't have line bore cam bearing blocks... you can verify
this by identifying the valve cover gasket...

To tell the difference between line bored head and the one that gots
the short cut... take a look at the valve cover gasket... if your gasket
sports little half circles molded into the rubber... then you have the
expensive line bored head... no little half circles... then you have the
short cut heads...

If you venture inside the valve cover... it is possible to identify 3
types of cam shafts... the original... a second generation with a small
oil hole in the cam lobe... and the final type with both the oil holes
and closed end caps...

From vfrdiscussion.com.

 

[ZGRider]

Originally Posted By: Silk
Originally Posted By: ZGRider






BTW, I have seen more than my share of Triumphs and Nortons seized tighter than a drum and if that is not a lubrication issue, I don't know what is. We like to think of those bikes fondly, but remember those were some of the most hated bikes in the world when the first Japanese bikes came ashore. They leaked oil, they siezed regularly, they had poor electrics, horrible carburation, flexing crankshafts, valve guide problems, and wet-sumped often. Those engines still had Whitworth bolts on them?


Obviously we live on different planets.I rode British bikes exclusively for many years - not just Triumphs,but Norton,BSA and Matchless twins,and singles as well.The only one I seized was a modified BSA single....and I suspect it was my 19 year old inexperience that was to blame.The only Triumphs I saw seized had oil issues for sure....like none.BSA twins used to rip the barrel off at the flange,usually after high comp pistons were fitted.Most of my bikes were old at the time,from the '50's and early '60's....the lastest model ones were a '72 BSA and '73 Triumph,but engines only.

And what's wrong with Whitworth? Especially coming from a country that hasn't moved onto metrics yet.


Well, for one thing my 1975 Norton Commando had metric fasteners on the frame but Whitworth on the engine. Norton just chose to not use them on the engine to save re-tooling costs. Very few mechanics in America used Whitworth tools unless they worked on Brit bikes. There's nothing wrong with Whitworth fasteners per se, just a PITA if you didn't have the tools.

I not trying to bash Brit bikes -- they are cool retro bikes, but they certainly needed to learn from the Japanese who put them out of business.

And even if they all didn't have inherent oiling problems, they had every other problem you could think of.

There is a very good reason why the British motorcycling industry died -- it didn't improve it's products to suit it's customers' desires -- most of whom were Americans.

Lastly, if you have a problem with America, keep it to yourself -- I haven't seen where New Zealand has done much to improve the world. God Save the Queen....indeed !

 

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted By: boraticus



Correct me if I'm wrong.

Planned obsolescence is an North American concept. It was started in the domestic auto industry in the early 70s ...


More like the mid-1950's. The "Suddenly it's 1960" Chrysler products of 1957 fell apart and rusted away within a year or two. GM did a complete restyle every 1-2 years.

 

[ZGRider]

Originally Posted By: Jimbo
Originally Posted By: boraticus



Correct me if I'm wrong.

Planned obsolescence is an North American concept. It was started in the domestic auto industry in the early 70s ...


More like the mid-1950's. The "Suddenly it's 1960" Chrysler products of 1957 fell apart and rusted away within a year or two. GM did a complete restyle every 1-2 years.


I guess that Fiat, Opel, Alfa, Saab, Sunbeam and many other European cars of the 50s, 60s, and 70s were the epitome of high quality, well designed, long-lasting automobiles? Please....give us all a break already. There is still many 50's American cars on the road even in Cuba. And they can't even get parts for them for the last 50 yrs, but they somehow keep them on the road in a tropical environment. Couldn't have been that bad of cars.

Planned obsolescence is a derisive, political term, not an engineering philosophy. No one designs a car to "fall-apart" If so, then they did a very bad job of it. Cars are either poorly designed or well designed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that older American cars couldn't have been better designed and built, but they served their purpose at the time, which was to provide basic transportation of the masses for the lowest cost to the consumer. Ford Model A's are built more like tractors, but that didn't keep them from performing their function well.

 

[edhackett]

OK, on purpose may be a bit strong. But the fact remains that the entire oiling system of these bikes was not up to the standards that would have been expected of a first year engineering student.

Here's a really good history of the problem and "solutions".

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~rblander/V4_cams.html

The main page for those with an interest in the Honda V4s in general:

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~rblander/moto_long.html

Oh, yea, I'm DoD #200.

Ed

 

[boraticus]

Good work Steve128. Very informative.

Sooooo, you don't believe that it was a planned obsolescence plot hatched by Honda accountants?

 

[boraticus]

Not to hijack the thread but I cannot believe that North American industry does not embrace planned obsolescence. Just look at what's going on in the manufacturing industry these days. I mentioned for instance, clothes washers and dryers. Prime examples of planned obsolescence and pre-determined operation failure. My mother-in-law has a 50 year old Kenwood clothes dryer. Go out a buy one now and see how long it lasts. Five years is the norm give or take a year or two.

We have become a society of "disposable goods".

Here's another fine example: When have you ever had a battery powered drill wear out it's mechanical components before the batteries expire? What makes this particularly distasteful is that the cost of replacing the battery is more than the price of a new drill! Is this wise? It's bad news all the way around and we are fools to accept the status quo. Durable goods should be durable. Batteries shouldn't cost more than the components they power.

From an environmental perspective it's particularly damaging. The waste being produced by our disposable habits is enormous.

 

[SteveSRT8]

You may not like it, but it exists.

Almost any mass produced item is designed to last a specific amount of time. Period.

If we didn't clamor for 'new and improved' so much they might change. We did it to ourselves!

 

[boraticus]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
You may not like it, but it exists.

Almost any mass produced item is designed to last a specific amount of time. Period.

If we didn't clamor for 'new and improved' so much they might change. We did it to ourselves!


Sad but true.

Personally, I can do without new and improved. Give me durable, long lasting products that are easy/inexpensive to operate and service. I'll gladly pay a premium for it.

 

[ZGRider]

Well, if you want things that last forever, then I guess there is nothing physical in this universe, I can interest you in. Even matter will eventually turn into energy (unusable energy) sooner or later.

All products are designed for a set lifetime, some longer, some shorter. Every product becomes worn-out and obsolete. Planned obsolescence is when the new products are specifically designed to render the older models unusable. For instance, if a manufacturer changes the new product so the old product no longer works.

Take computers for example, what if new software didn't work on the older computers? And say that the software engineers purposely designed the new software not to work on the older computers -- then that would be planned obsolescence. The older computer would be rendered useless.

In motor vehicles, that would be very hard to do. I can still drive a Model T on the public roadways if I choose. What you all are talking about is that the vehicles are poorly designed and they don't last as long as you would like. Different thing entirely. They weren't purposely designed to render the older models unusable.

As long as I can get gasoline, oil and tires, I can drive a vehicle as long as it will last. It never becomes unusable by a newer model.

We (consumers) just don't like the thought of the Joneses driving a newer (or better) vehicle than we drive -- that is a personally flaw, not planned obsolescence.

 

[bigbird_1]

Originally Posted By: boraticus
Personally, I can do without new and improved. Give me durable, long lasting products that are easy/inexpensive to operate and service. I'll gladly pay a premium for it.


You would really like a Honda 50 Cub scooter or a Volkswagen old Beetle.