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Opinions on oil consumption

6K views 26 replies 9 participants last post by  rick 
#1 ·
I have an 05 800 classic with 96,000 miles. Have had this bike since new in Febuaryr 06. Always been flawless. Have had to add oil to it 3 times between oil changes since I got it. The 1st time was at about 5,000 right after my first long trip on it at speeds of 75-85 for 14 hours straight. The 2nd time was last august on return trip of 2,000 miles, milage on bike was about 92,000 at that time. Changed oil at 93,000, had to add oil again yesturday, mileage now at 96,250, oil chang planned for thursday morning. Have asked a coup;e people I ride with and one guy said the only time he ever saw a hint of smoke from it was when under hard acceleration getting up to highway speeds. Dosent appear to be any leaks. Going to do compression check when I change the oil. Power seems to be as good as ever. Should I consider doing a valve and ring job over the winter is my question.
 
#3 ·
Rick, The biggest oil loss is from the crank case breather system which is stock routed up to the intake system. The low pressure of intake will suck oil out of the hose when the case pulses it high pressure pulse.
Smoke during high acceleration is usually black and black is gas. I'd be more curious if there was blue puffs on deceleration. blue is oil.
White is steam.
And Green is Beans ! and Brown is Too Late !
 
#4 ·
The only person who said there was a hint of smoke said it was only when I was getting on it a bit, and it was faint. Going to do the compression test in the morning anyway. Not sure about the leakdown. Know you pressureize the cylinder and see how much pressure it looses over a timed period. Can this be done with the compression guage or do I need a specail set of guages for it.
 
#7 ·
Run 10/40 myself from dealer. I dont think I run it to hard, dont really baby it, but dont race it either. Never used oil in mine either, just started, and near 100,000 figure reasonable will start showing some wear here and there.
 
#8 ·
I would take sfairs advice and do the test or have it done. Using a heavier weight oil or anything else like that only masks the problem. Diagnose the issue THEN decide the course of repair, not the other way around.
 
#11 ·
The motor has never been apart other than removing te valve covers once last spring to adjust the valves. Sounds like a project for febuary when I get my taxes back. May go ahead and check valves again and get new gaskets for the covers and spark plug tubes. Cash is slim at the moment and dont want to have the bike down for a couple months if this is as bad as it gets. Hoping its just the oring at the top of the plug tube. Will try to check it out next week end and let ya know how it goes. Thanks!!
 
#14 ·
Pulled the covers today to check valves and put new o-rings on spark plug tubes. Exhaust on front cylinder cam showing wear, and 1 valve was tight, .005 smaller shim. Intake lobe on back wearing also, 1 intake valve needed shim .010 bigger. Looks like will better tearing into in couple months.

This was the front cylinder, maybe .015-.020. Rear wasnt this bad, just enough to catch my finger nail.


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#16 ·
Pulled the covers today to check valves and put new o-rings on spark plug tubes. Exhaust on front cylinder cam showing wear, and 1 valve was tight, .005 smaller shim. Intake lobe on back wearing also, 1 intake valve needed shim .010 bigger. Looks like will better tearing into in couple months. View attachment 14424
This was the front cylinder, maybe .015-.020. Rear wasnt this bad, just enough to catch my finger nail.


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Wow! You jumped on it fast Rick! Let us know what happens with the weep hole situation. Like my old biker grandpa used to say:

Stay on top of her so you can keep riding her for all she's worth! Even as a kid I somehow knew he wasn't just talking bikes. :D
 
#15 · (Edited)
You put some miles on it for sure. Some of my higher mileage vehicals have used a little oil but usually stop for a while after changing it.

Acceleration smoke would lead my to think blow by as in ring wear that sfair mentioned. Doing a compression test that you planed might show this but it sounds pretty minimal at this point if your not blowing blue smoke or smelling oil all the time.
 
#18 ·
Cams, once they show wear, usually have a short life after that and they can wear in a hurry.
800's have been know to drop valves, and that is something you do not want to happen!
Sooo, if your engine is blowing smoke, valvetrain is showing its age, it might be time for a teardown. Continuing to ride might not be a good idea.
 
#19 · (Edited)
SFair's right and this is good advice Rick. The 800 doesn't need to have the entire engine torn down to change camshafts but if you are up against that much mileage then a complete teardown cleaning/inspection/rebuild is a good idea to replace anything that has reached or passed its service limits if you haven't already done that. I only say this because it seems you like your bike and intend on keeping it. I once read on here about a member's bike suddenly dropping a valve one morning when he started his bike. He had someone use an internal engine camera to diagnose the problem but all he had to do was take the heads off to see that. Anyway, I assume this is what you meant when you said you would work on it during the winter.

Because you will be hard down without riding and if this is your only bike it's a major drag for serious riders like yourself to spend all this time unable to ride and having to check valve seat angles/diameters, valves, camshaft runout and height, camshaft/cap clearances, camshaft journal diameters, camshaft chains, camshaft tensioners, camshaft sprockets, rocker shafts/rocker arms, cylinder walls, piston rings, pistons, crankshafts, trans etc. etc. etc. and so basically you can classify this as a rebuild but it's all worth it in the end.

You are up to the task though and you should come out just fine. The only thing I wanted to emphasize is that the camshaft cap is machined/mated for the head it comes with and if the cap is beyond service limits I would buy a new head and trade in the old one for a core if the old head is beyond service limits or get the new camshaft cap machined/mated for the old head if it is still within service limits. I've heard about people replacing camshaft caps and installing them on the old heads without having them machined/mated and having some serious problems after that. Keep us updated and hope you had a good Christmas Dinner.
 
#20 ·
Have done minor rebuild a couple times on Chevy 350s, so have no fear of doing this myself. Spec I was looking in manual for, but didnt find was the valve to piston clearance. Have checked this on V8s by puttng a small amount of putty on the top of piston and mounting the head as you would to run it, then slowly rotating the engine in its normal rotation. Then disassemble and measure the thinnest portion of the putty. This is useful for determing how much the heads can be milled to correct minor worpage, and increase the compression a small amount. Understand how bad dropping a valve can be, just helped a friend replace his motor due to loosing both exhaust valves on the front cylinder. He found a motor for 1,200 with just over 8,000 miles. This bring up the question of, would it be better to just find a low milage motor or do a rebuild on mine.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Excellent points Rick. Unfortunately bike engineers don't leave us much to work with when it comes to re-machining anything and so the service limits are what they are to prevent these pesky little piston/valve collisions. :)

If you stick with the head/jug warpage/flatness, valve seat/valve cutter diameters/angles, valve guide, piston/cylinder clearance service limits and then adjust your valve clearance this is how you achieve the proper piston to valve clearance and also avoid valve guide wobble/piston wobble.

Clean the area you're hand-cutting really well, apply machinist's die to coat the intended valve seating areas, use quality cutting oil, rotate your valve seat cutters and lap your valves very slowly gently by hand in whatever direction (i.e. clockwise or counterclockwise) that is easiest for you but remember these things:

1. Do not remove any more surface material than necessary to achieve a smooth finish.

2. Do not cut in opposing directions back and forth as though scrubbing the inside of a drinking glass. Instead turn in one direction only until you see die being removed but do this ever so softly and gently. When cutting ensure to keep the cutter perpendicular to the surface being cut. Most importantly double check your cutters to ensure they are the right specs for the area you are cutting and that they are not damaged or too worn past the point of being useful.

3. Do not use too much die. A machinist's and mechanics best work is done when there is the lightest coat of die possible on the area being worked on.

4. Do not grind the seats too much and pay close attention to your service limits. I'm sure you already have access to a quality caliper and micrometer to measure things so that's a given with your experience.

5. Lap your valves to their seats in the same slow gentle manner first with coarse grinding compound until you have a smooth matched surface on both seat and valve. Repeat the process with fine grinding compound and ensure the smooth finishes are in the middle of the valve face area. Mark the valves with a Sharpie to correspond with their seating areas. I mark parts this way sometimes when they need to be replaced to the area being machined, lapped or fitted but it's my own personal preference to do it this way.

You can only go in so far into the head until its service limits are exceeded and anything beyond service limits will slam-jam a bike engine something fierce. The putty trick is a good one to use to double check your work from the inside after you get it all put back together. That way you can see what that piston to valve clearance might be like even though it isn't called out by the manufacturer since overgrinding will drop the valve too deep inside of the head, make it impossible to adjust your valve clearance and force you to buy a new head.

Wish we lived in the same area because I know it would be fun riding and wrenching with you friend. Keep us posted. :)
 
#22 ·
I was thinking that myself. Low milage 800's are certainly out there for decent money. Wouldn't it make sense to just find one and swap around what you want? I guess it all comes down to availability of funds vs the time and effort you want to invest.

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#25 ·
Roger that, Bear, but not using the putty trick after final assembly and starting the engine to see how she runs. That would be wreckless I think. With the bike you can hand crank before final assembly and without starting the engine to check what this clearance might be like since the book doesn't specifically call out any specs for valve to piston clearance. The valve to piston clearance is factored into the service limits since it positions the valves at a minimum and maximum distance if all is done correctly. Thus the the fine tuning can be done by adjusting valve clearance from the top end. Guess they wanted to try and make it easy on us? Yeah, right! :D
 
#26 ·
Good point Sfair, didnt think about that. Guess if things look to bad when I get into it, will just look for another motor. Cant see putting 3-4 thoundsand into it, just to say its the origanal motor, when you can find good low mileage wrecks for 1/2 the price and maybe get a few usable spare parts at the same time. Do plan to keep the bike reguardless because its my 1st, but am also wanting a bigger bike for the longer rides. great bike, but 2up plus a weeks worth of stuff I think really is hard on it.
 
#27 ·
Finally got a chance to do a compression check. Got a curious result on the rear cylinder. Got 113 on rear dry, then also 113 after squirtting oil in the cylinder. On the front got 110 dry, and 123 after adding oil. This seams normal to increase some with oil, not sure if should be happy about rear not increasing or not. These reading are low according to the clymers I have, should be between 124 and 191. Do have open pipes, and have heard that if your back pressure is to low can have negative affect on compression. Am thinking the bottom end may still have some life in it, but may need to do the top. Know the cams are about done. May have to break down and buy leakdow tester from Sears, none of the auto parts stores here seem to carry them, just dont really want to spend a $100 + on gauge may only use once every 7 or 8 years. Ideas?
 
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