A bit of history…this past summer I intended to have my oil analyzed at 1,500 and 2,000 km to check for wear metals and contamination. I’d like to use 2,000 km OCI since some trips I’ve planned are about that distance (The ThumperTalk crowd tends toward 500-1,000 mile OCI.). The bike is used mainly on gravel roads and off-road so there is a lot of shifting and clutch-slipping. Most of this past season I’ve been having starting problems as if the engine is too rich.
I checked the oil after 1,636 km and the gas dilution was 7% (oil condition: destructive). The engine was still fairly new and I’d been running in very dusty conditions for much of the oci (think “whiteout” but with dust instead of snow) which explains part of the contamination and wear. The fuel dilution problem was with the automatic fuel petcock which is a known problem with the DRZ400. I replaced the fuel petcock with a good manual petcock and all my starting issues have disappeared.
I was surprised to see the fuel dilution is still high. I’ll be checking the float level, and condition of the float valve seat over the winter.
I’ll continue to use T6 5w-40 for my next fill and hope to see how dramatically the oil shears down without a fuel dilution problem. I’m not particularly worried about it shearing to 30 grade since 10w-30 is permitted for temperatures up to 30C and my riding is mainly the eastern slopes of the Rockies where the temperatures rarely get that high. I’d prefer to use a low xw oil since most of my cold starts are at 5-10C.
Nothing will be happening until next spring as Calgary has had snow on the ground for several weeks now. I was hoping my last OCI would have been longer but winter came early this year.
High silver was a concern - the comment was that possible wrist pin bearing wear was the cause. The source of silver has not been confirmed as being associated with the con-rod but is likely the case.
Html:
Date 2012-11-04 2012-08-20
km on unit 6,116 4,853
km on oil 947 1,636
Oil T6 5w-40 T6 5w-40
Ag 6.6 47
Cr 0 0
Si 6 19
P 2,025 1,737
Cu 7 34
Na 1 0
Zn 1,014 1,265
Ca 1,043 679
Pb 0 0
B 46 0
Sn 0 7
Fe 7 17
Al 6 25
Ni 0 0
Viscosity 11.0 10.4
Fuel dilution% 5.6 6.9
Insolubles 0.2 0.2
Oxidation 1.8 1.2
TBN 6.7 7.6
Ian
I checked the oil after 1,636 km and the gas dilution was 7% (oil condition: destructive). The engine was still fairly new and I’d been running in very dusty conditions for much of the oci (think “whiteout” but with dust instead of snow) which explains part of the contamination and wear. The fuel dilution problem was with the automatic fuel petcock which is a known problem with the DRZ400. I replaced the fuel petcock with a good manual petcock and all my starting issues have disappeared.
I was surprised to see the fuel dilution is still high. I’ll be checking the float level, and condition of the float valve seat over the winter.
I’ll continue to use T6 5w-40 for my next fill and hope to see how dramatically the oil shears down without a fuel dilution problem. I’m not particularly worried about it shearing to 30 grade since 10w-30 is permitted for temperatures up to 30C and my riding is mainly the eastern slopes of the Rockies where the temperatures rarely get that high. I’d prefer to use a low xw oil since most of my cold starts are at 5-10C.
Nothing will be happening until next spring as Calgary has had snow on the ground for several weeks now. I was hoping my last OCI would have been longer but winter came early this year.
High silver was a concern - the comment was that possible wrist pin bearing wear was the cause. The source of silver has not been confirmed as being associated with the con-rod but is likely the case.
Html:
Date 2012-11-04 2012-08-20
km on unit 6,116 4,853
km on oil 947 1,636
Oil T6 5w-40 T6 5w-40
Ag 6.6 47
Cr 0 0
Si 6 19
P 2,025 1,737
Cu 7 34
Na 1 0
Zn 1,014 1,265
Ca 1,043 679
Pb 0 0
B 46 0
Sn 0 7
Fe 7 17
Al 6 25
Ni 0 0
Viscosity 11.0 10.4
Fuel dilution% 5.6 6.9
Insolubles 0.2 0.2
Oxidation 1.8 1.2
TBN 6.7 7.6
Ian
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