80 ltd 1000 kaw and synthetic oil

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cat

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Aug 25, 2004
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what your opinion on using synthetic oil in an 80 ltd 1000 kaw w/ 9000 miles. i've heard various things about clutch slippage and also gasket weeping on older bikes before '85.

i use rotella t syn in my 91 1200 kaw voyager and it seems to shift much better and run smoother.
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welcome cat! if it were me, to be on safe side, i would stick to the a high grade petroleum oil in your 24yr old scoot. changed every 2 or 3 thousand miles, it should do well. synthetic would probably be kinda overkill in this case. probably not worth the worries of the possibility of the wet clutch slippage, seal compalibity, leakage, whether they materialize or not. maybe a low moly 15-40 hdeo? fellas?
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i guess i should have said that i currently use valvoline 20/50 at 2000 miles.
i think you're right. the bike shifts great w/ the dino and no clutch slippage. now what about filters? i use napa golds in my other bikes.

cat
 
oh oh! don't get these other guys started about valvoline! lol . it has, generaly speaking, one of the weakest additive packages amoung the oils frequently tested by analasis here by other members. thinking the 20-50 might be a little on the heavy side too, unless you are driving real hard or in a hotter then ususal environment. could be robbing ya of a little hp. the napa golds seem to be well recieved here, at least in the car filter segment. i believe the motorcycle napa golds would also be made by the wix folks. i ride a sportster 1200, and am currently using either the factory hd filter or the amsoil.

[ August 27, 2004, 08:31 AM: Message edited by: penzdude ]
 
about the valvoline....many people have gone thousands and thousands of trouble free miles using it. to many, it might still be a favorite. i believe however, reading and learning from the other more knowledgeable members of this site, that there are oils in the same price range or even less with beefier additive packages that might better suit the harsh environment that motorcycle oils typically operate in. ie/shared duty in a motor and tranny. ok....call off the ashland dogs!
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Forget the myths.

My '72 and '84 Hondas both have Mobil1 15W50 in them and neither one leaks or has a clutch problem. The '84 is a V65 Sabre with 36k miles on the original clutch. It's had only synthetics since '86.

Avoid oils with "energy conserving" in the API starburst and you should be fine.
 
Pennzoil LL15w-40 works real well in these older air-cooled shared tranny bikes. I have a Suzuki GS1100 (1983) and live in 95+ summers here. Not too thick, not too thin. I do not believe a synthetic wold be in your best interest on this older bike due to the issues stated above. the 20w-50 is a little thick, but will work in an extremely hot environment. The rotella T-syn your using I take it is a 5w-40? If you have good luck with that oil, that would be the only Syn I would consider, basically because it most closely resembles the 10w-40 called for on these bikes.
 
ken, i don't have a problem with anyone using mobil 1 or any synth in their bikes. i, for one, am also using red cap mobil 15-50 in my 1200xlh, motor and tranny. i beleive though, enough people with older bikes have had issues with leaking and shifting to be a real concern. my bike is a 2000' model. i know that quite a few people have had no problems at using a synth in an older bike as well. glad yours doesn't. in a 1980 bike w/2000 mile intervals, which most bikers change their oil anyway, whether they will admit it or not, i think synth could be a waste. imho
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I had an '81 GPZ1100 and a '73 Z1 before that. Both the same basic engine as your 1000LTD. I also helped build and maintain a couple of 900 and 1000 race bikes.

I ran Castrol GTX 10W-40 in the Z1 up until I started using synthetic oil and Klotz 10W-40 synthetic after that. The GPZ had Klotz synthetic and later M1 15W-50 but I had leakage trouble with it and noises I didn't like so I went back to the Klotz. We also ran the same Klotz in the race bikes.

If I had one today I'd use the Rotella T 5W-40 synthetic or better yet, M1 Truck & Suv / Delvac 1 5W-40. One of the HDEO 15W-40's might also work ok but I think the synthetics would be better.

Stay away from heavy oils in these engines. All you'll be doing is raising the oil temperature. Going to a 50 weight from a 40 weight will raise your oil temp by as much as 20 degrees ( yes, I've actually measured this on these engines ) and provide nothing else that you need. These engines have roller bearing cranks and require very little oil pressure but lots of flow is your friend. Be careful of oil level. Too much oil and you'll get windage and blowby into the airbox. Too little and you'll get pump starvation and get to replace cam bearing inserts. The site guage on the clutch cover has high and low markings. Use them.

We ended up putting an oil pan flapper in one of the 900's because it would accelerate so hard it would uncover the pump pickup...
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We never had clutch problems but most of them ended up with heavy springs used with the stock plates. Unlike some of the other bikes of the day and their exploding clutch baskets, the Kaw clutches were pretty much bulletproof...
 
quote:

Originally posted by jsharp:
Going to a 50 weight from a 40 weight will raise your oil temp by as much as 20 degrees ( yes, I've actually measured this on these engines )

Is this the same for auto engine oil also? Heavier oil runs hotter - correct? So a 15w-40 will run hotter than a 5-30.
 
quote:

Originally posted by JonS:

quote:

Originally posted by jsharp:
Going to a 50 weight from a 40 weight will raise your oil temp by as much as 20 degrees ( yes, I've actually measured this on these engines )

Is this the same for auto engine oil also? Heavier oil runs hotter - correct? So a 15w-40 will run hotter than a 5-30.


I've never done a study of this on auto engines so I couldn't give numbers, but I'm sure the general statement is true. All other things being equal, thicker oils generally produce higher oil temps. I noticed my son's truck seems to run higher oil temps now using Rotella T 5W-40 than it did running M1 10W-30 but that's the only vehicle I have with an oil temp gauge and I'm going off memory...
 
well, thanks for all the advice. i ended up putting castrol gtx 10/40w w/ a napa gold filter.

it seems to shift a bit more gummy than the havoline 20/50w. if i'm sitting at a stop in 5th and shift down, i have to play w/ the clutch a bit to downshift to 1st. didn't have this before.(i think previuosly i wrote valvoline-- i get the names mixed up)don't know why this would be but maybe because the bike's been sitting a bit or because the oil is new?? i put about 100 miles on it and it's still a little gummy.
any ideas?

cat
 
My old 80 mkII z1000 did quite well with gtx 20w50, valvoline racing 20w50 and also ran m1 15w50 for a while. That was back in the early 90's pre tri-synthetic version. Ran very well and experienced no leakage or slippage. (except for the famous tachometer cable leak but there it didn't matter what oil you used ).

Personally I think the red cap is a good match for that bike....

best of luck.

r.
 
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