Burning oil

[Dan Filetti]

It may only be under load.  Have someone with a good sense of smell, who knows what burning oil smells like, follow you under hard acceleration.  I had a CBR1000F that would only stinky rich only under load not at idle even under hard neutral revs.  Again, I'm pretty sure you are losing that oil out your tail pipe.  Do make sure your valves are properly adjusted, worth doing anyway, and poorly adjusted valves, as I understand it, (someone with intimate knowledge, please confirm) can lead to oil use.

Dan

[JCainFJ]

What oil are you using. My 89 would use a lot of regular mc oil. When I made the change to Redline oil It would go 2.5k before I needed to add any. Redline is expensive but it does work.

[fintip]

Chiming in with the last comment... When I got my FJ, the PO told me it used to burn oil but when he switched to synthetic that stopped.

I at the time strongly believed wet clutch bikes shouldn't run on synth, so I switched back to dino oil--Rotella T. Sure enough, it burned oil, and I'd start seeing my oil level light come on.

Did some reading, a LOT of reading, and decided to give Rotella synth (5-40) a try for the winter, to help with cold starts and to allow longer service intervals, as well as better prevention of burnt oil during the occasional traffic-in-heat situation here in Texas... Not only did I notice a cold-start difference, but I have not been burning oil since then, and I push my oil changes. No more oil level lights.

[crzyjarmans]

When I bought the bike, the owner told me he had just serviced the bike, oil in window had confirmed that it looked like new oil, He said he had use synthetic oil, so when I found that I was low, I bought synthetic oil to replace, I filled it up to just below the top of the window, Me and the little lady went on a 150 mile sprint yesterday, and it seems to be down a bit, right at the line now

[Steve_in_Florida]

I'll keep an eye on the oil level after adjusting my valves (imminent).

I've been using Amsoil 10W-40 synthetic Motorcycle oil for a couple of years now.

Maybe we'll end up organizing a "Ring-Replacement & Valve Seal Shin-dig" event sometime!

Steve

[AustinFJ]

I'm in a similar situation with oil consumption, but with a strange twist.  Just turned over 65k.  While I have been burning a quart or so every ~1000 miles (I get the oil level light to remind me if I don't check it), my bike has also started running quite lean the past few weeks.   Surging slightly while at constant speed (4-5k rpm).   Checked the fuel filter, clean and flows freely.   Checked the fuel pump, pumps like the day it was born.   Pulled the plugs and see white residue on all 4 plugs. All very similar.   Running pretty lean.   I had adjusted the carbs last year and if anything, was a bit on the fat side for the main jet (112 or 114, can't remember) for a bike with stock pipes and UNI air filters. I've gone to the 5th (last) notch on the needles trying to lift them enough to stop the surging, and it has helped, but looks like I'll have to go with bigger main jets which I didn't think I would have to do. 

I am surprised that I didn't see any dark residue on the plugs with the oil loss, and the fact that the bike has started to run very lean at the same time it's apparently burning oil is really strange.  I have had fellow riders mention some smoke on acceleration, so I figured the rings are getting tired.   And I have no puddles on the garage floor either.   The head gasket has started to leak a little so I deemed it time to do the full refresh (gaskets, rings, lap valves, seals, etc.) but without bigger pistons.    

Any ideas on the increasing leanness and/or how it might be happening at the same time as the oil consumption has gone up?   
I'm a bit puzzled by this one... 

[theLeopard]

I have had my 1200 for a year. I had oil slowly weeping from many places, valve cover grommets, valve cover gasket. The rubber gasket for the silver center piece of the clutch cover. I was loosing a quart in 400 miles. The big thing I noticed was a lot of smoke from the muffler on cold start ups. My suspicions were worn valve seals. I am in the middle of having the head rebuilt. All 8 of the exhaust vlaves show sign of bad valve seals.

Fred

[vandenw]

Dan

Audi just did a recall on the A4 because of the oil burn problem. Still a crap car though.

Gareth,

I reject this idea.  I had an Audi dealer tell me the same damn thing.  "Acceptable" my ass.  I sold that A4 pig with with 45K miles on it, that was burning 1 qt every 1,100 miles and bought a Honda, and have owned Hondas only, since.  My Pilot has 160,000 miles on it and it has the same amount of oil in it at 5,000 miles, as it did when I changed the oil last.

Air cooled motors, assuming no abuse (sitting in traffic, not moving air across the head) should be able to do the same thing, burn little to no oil, seems to me.

Dan 
[/quote]

[PaulG]

It may only be under load....

Dan

This is something my go-to mechanic/sidecar racing veteran http://motorcyclecityinc.ca/page/display/pageId/6029/siteId/1000212  suggested to me:  get the bike at running temp., have someone follow you (preferably on another bike) - go through some hard acceleration, normal running, and hard deceleration (without brakes) - if whitish smoke it's valve train - if blue smoke it's rings - also keep a nose out for any distinctive odours. In fact there were a couple of other things to keep an eye out for... But I forgot... Sorry 

I had thought my oil consumption was a bit high, but I'm only adding 1L per ~1500 km or so.  After I go through 2L I automatically change the oil anyhow ~ 3,000 - 5,000 km. And that's probably 50/50 commuting/touring. In full long distance touring mode it drops to nearly 1/2 that.  So I guess I'm doing very good compared to some.

[ribbert]

This is something my go-to mechanic/sidecar racing veteran suggested to me:  get the bike at running temp., have someone follow you (preferably on another bike) - go through some hard acceleration, normal running, and hard deceleration (without brakes) - if whitish smoke it's valve train - if blue smoke it's rings -

With all due respect to your mechanics other skills, oil burns blue. Doesn't matter how it gets into the combustion chamber. Be it past the rings or past the valve seals, it's still engine oil. Whitish smoke is something else entirely (and not something you will find on an air cooled motor)

Noel

[chiz]

"Believe it or not" smoking is more easily detected at night ignore getting it warm just get someone to follow.
Chiz

[Mark Olson]

Uh... Blue smoke is oil burning ...Grey is fuel from running rich .

when you are burning oil .  blue smoke on acceleration is rings ... blue smoke on deceleration is valve guides.

Most common to bad valve guides is burns oil on startup then goes away when warmed up.
Bad rings are gonna burn oil all the time.

[PaulG]

So I went back to the mechanic/shop owner who originally told me this (two years ago) and asked him to explain it to me again, and this time I wrote it down.  I did this not to see if I was right or wrong (as I already knew that answer), but to set right the fact that I put my foot in my mouth and attached his reputation to it by including his web address.   

So essentially it is what Mssr. Olson has said in the previous post.

Travel at a steady speed - back off the throttle - then accelerate.  Backing off the throttle will create a vaccuum above the piston.  If there is any excessive wear in the piston/rings/cylinder wall, the vaccuum will draw oil past this wear, then upon acceleration it may smoke.

On a cold start if it initially smokes then goes away once warmed up, then that's an indication of valve guides or seals.

He is one of the last of the old school mechanics in this area and I wouldn't want an offhand remark by me (even if in good intent) to reflect on his 40ish years of experience in the trade.  Especially when I got the "with all due respect...".   

Happy motoring.   

[ribbert]

So I went back to the mechanic/shop owner who originally told me this (two years ago) and asked him to explain it to me again, and this time I wrote it down.  I did this not to see if I was right or wrong (as I already knew that answer), but to set right the fact that I put my foot in my mouth and attached his reputation to it by including his web address.   

So essentially it is what Mssr. Olson has said in the previous post.

Travel at a steady speed - back off the throttle - then accelerate.  Backing off the throttle will create a vaccuum above the piston.  If there is any excessive wear in the piston/rings/cylinder wall, the vaccuum will draw oil past this wear, then upon acceleration it may smoke.

On a cold start if it initially smokes then goes away once warmed up, then that's an indication of valve guides or seals.

He is one of the last of the old school mechanics in this area and I wouldn't want an offhand remark by me (even if in good intent) to reflect on his 40ish years of experience in the trade.  Especially when I got the "with all due respect...".   

Happy motoring.   

Good on you Paul for the value you place on your friends reputation.

For anyone wishing to employ this method there are couple of things not mentioned. "Travel at a steady speed - back off the throttle - then accelerate." is correct but doesn't fully describe the technique. To be effective, it needs to be over as much time as you can manage and in top gear, from as high a revs as is practical, down a hill to lengthen the deceleration even better, then crack the throttle well open swiftly when it gets down to about 2,000 rpm, don't feed it on. As there is not much combustion going on while decelerating this will allow more unburnt oil to accumulate which will then burn as soon as you hit the throttle and produce smoke. This is difficult to see on a bike unless it is in smoke screen proportions and as you mentioned, is probably best done with an observer following.

From what I have seen and read here over the years, compression rings seem to wear faster than oil rings though. But, as we know, there are always exceptions.

Noel

[Mark Olson]

The FJ seems to have problems with oil rings sticking if the engine sits for a period of time .
This is usually cured with a spirited ride that has lots of acceleration and long deceleration engine braking style riding. clears it right up and will increase compression numbers on a engine that has sat for awhile.