My 14 Road King and I think all Rushmore bikes come with an oil cooler. (except the water cooled models, I think)
Being its not unusual in my area to have daytime temps of 100 degrees, as it has been for weeks until yesterday, I was thinking of adding a fan in front of the oil cooler that I can switch on if I ever get caught in heavy traffic.
However before I did, I thought it would be smart to know what the oil temp runs on the bike so I bought what seems like a nicely made analog oil temperature dipstick from JES Custom.
I prefer analog for an application like this because it is always "on" no buttons to press, just glance down and you know the oil temperature. I bought the oil filled version for the purpose of having a steady needle. Hopefully time will prove it to last a long time.
Anyway, of course, I installed it yesterday which turned out to be one of the coolest days in the entire month, outside temperature was 85 to 92 degrees. Went on a 100 mile ride two up in our area, mix of interstate and much local.
I was surprised by how steady the oil temperature stayed. I guess the thermostat controlled stock oil cooler does a good job when moving. Its not a big cooler but the temperature stayed pretty much around 220 degrees +/- 10 degrees in all kinds of riding.
Local riding, stop lights etc it would climb to about 230 (at one point and only one point during the day it looked like it was almost 240 briefly) Interstate and faster local road riding it would drop right back down to around 210/220 max.
This was only one day of riding, in time I will have a better idea of how hot it can get when not moving/traffic situations.
If I ever see it go alarming high I may simply bolt on a small high quality fan to the front of the cooler and hook it up to the accessory switch for stuck in traffic problems however rare they are around here.
Does anyone else track their oil temperature?
What would one consider an alarming high oil temperature?
And last, even if the oil could stand much higher temps, if I observe it going really high during traffic I might install the fan just for the purpose of the oil helping to cool the engine.
Being its not unusual in my area to have daytime temps of 100 degrees, as it has been for weeks until yesterday, I was thinking of adding a fan in front of the oil cooler that I can switch on if I ever get caught in heavy traffic.
However before I did, I thought it would be smart to know what the oil temp runs on the bike so I bought what seems like a nicely made analog oil temperature dipstick from JES Custom.
I prefer analog for an application like this because it is always "on" no buttons to press, just glance down and you know the oil temperature. I bought the oil filled version for the purpose of having a steady needle. Hopefully time will prove it to last a long time.
Anyway, of course, I installed it yesterday which turned out to be one of the coolest days in the entire month, outside temperature was 85 to 92 degrees. Went on a 100 mile ride two up in our area, mix of interstate and much local.
I was surprised by how steady the oil temperature stayed. I guess the thermostat controlled stock oil cooler does a good job when moving. Its not a big cooler but the temperature stayed pretty much around 220 degrees +/- 10 degrees in all kinds of riding.
Local riding, stop lights etc it would climb to about 230 (at one point and only one point during the day it looked like it was almost 240 briefly) Interstate and faster local road riding it would drop right back down to around 210/220 max.
This was only one day of riding, in time I will have a better idea of how hot it can get when not moving/traffic situations.
If I ever see it go alarming high I may simply bolt on a small high quality fan to the front of the cooler and hook it up to the accessory switch for stuck in traffic problems however rare they are around here.
Does anyone else track their oil temperature?
What would one consider an alarming high oil temperature?
And last, even if the oil could stand much higher temps, if I observe it going really high during traffic I might install the fan just for the purpose of the oil helping to cool the engine.
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