oil & filter

Hello everybody....I'm new to the site TODAY !!!! Nice to be part of it. Any suggestions on which is the best oil & filter for mi cat '97 had her approx 1 year are they easy to change or worth spending the £'s more to let somone else do it....thanks

Hi there Tozcat and welcome to the forum, with regard to oils and filters its a bit of a personal preference thing but basic rule of thumb is avoid the cheaper EBay deals, stick with names you know and you get what you pay for. Hi flow filters are more popular and I'm sure you'll generate a debate about everyone's individual oil choice.

As for doing it yourself it's a very straightforward job if you are hady with the spanners, Haynes manual will advise taking off the fairing which tbh makes the job easier but that's not to say it can't be done with the fairing in place. Take your time and you'll be okay, just be careful not to overfil the oil and check well for leaks after. A smear of oil on the oil filter seal will not only make for a better seal but it should also make it easier to get off in the future.

Good luck pal.

Filters - Those that I've used are Yamaha's own (obviously), Halfords (Champion - used to be F306 IIRC, but they've changed the numbering system recently), Hein Gericke (Meiwe - Japanese brand which I suspect may be the same as Yam's own - HG sometimes do a deal with a free filter when you buy 4 litres of their oil), or K&N - available reasonably priced on eBay, big advantage of these is the have a hexagon "nut" on the end so you don't need to buy a special adapter to fit or remove (but don't overtighten).

Oils - The debate will go on forever about whether to use semi- or fully-synthetic oil. Personally I've been using full synth (Castrol) in the Cat to give extended change intervals, but I only do long trips so I never give it a chance for condensation to build up. Others will advise more frequent changes of oil and filter, in which case semi-synth is just as good. I've been using HG's own brand semi-synth 10W-40 (I'm told this is made by Motul) in the Fazer 6, and in the past Halfords own brand (which was on a 20% offer last week - not sure if that's still on). But really any bike-specific 10W40 should be fine. Avoid car oils (petrol or diesel) as they have additives which may cause clutch slip.

Out of interest, I was talking to a retired dispatcher the other day (or rather he was talking to me - he had me cornered!) who has a Blackbird with 300,000 and a lot more miles on it. He told me when he was putting really big miles on it, and having to change the oil every few days, he used cheap Carplan SAE30 in it. He recently had the
valves checked and they were all within tolerance.

For oil, for normal use (ie, not racing) a good 10W-40 semi-synthetic will be perfectly adequate. Examples include:

Castrol Power 1 4T 10W-40
Silkolene Super 4 10W-40
Motul 5100 4T 10W-40
Mobil Extra 4T 10W-40
Shell Advance AX7 10W-40
Halfords Motorcycle Engine Oil Part Synthetic 10W-40 4 Stroke

...and so on. Using fully-synthetic will offer additional protection, especially if you're really hard on the engine or if you fancy extending oil drain intervals.

The advice to avoid car oils is sound, although if it's all you can get, some oil is better than no oil! The problem with car engine oils is that they can be optimised for fuel economy, which means the use of friction-enhancing additives. What these might do is cause the clutch in a bike engine to slip. However, since we're looking at 10W-40 oils, there won't be any at this viscosity that are chasing fuel economy since this is the realm of the thinner oils like 5W-30, 0W-30 and lower, so if you do use car oil, it'll probably be OK, if not perfectly optimised for a bike's power density (power per litre of oil), gearbox (shear stability) etc.

wow...thanks you lot shudve joined ages ago

what can i use for old oil? bucket (to large)? whet can i use ?

TomCom wrote:what can i use for old oil? bucket (to large)? whet can i use ?

Buy A basin out of the nearest pond shop, it will only cost you a pound!

Davie full of great ideas.......................................

thx i was at B&M and buy for 2.50 no pontshop up here

I'll stick my green hat on and tell y'all that you should collect up your old oil and take it to your local recycling centre for proper disposal.

Pouring it anywhere else is very naughty.

FYI - I use the £1 basin idea (great Scotsmen think alike) I fashioned a chute out of cardboard to guide the oil from the where the filter goes on into my basin.
Just make sure you angle up the sides to stop it running all over your downpipes.
Once done you can keep the chute in a big plastic bag, funnel the oil from the basin it into an large enough old oil carton.
wipe it all down with an oily (or it soon will be) rag.
Remembering that old oil is always jet black and new oil is always a much cleaner colour helps if you forget which container is which.

Told you you'd be teaching bike maintenance soon Tomcom.

Cheers
Rosco

Or you can use an old oil container with a hole cut out of the side, this will cost £0.00 !

...with the added bonus that it comes with a built-in easy-pour spout for disposal.

Done the same myself. . Also made a funnel out of the top of an old lemonade bottle.

Tee-Forty wrote:Or you can use an old oil container with a hole cut out of the side, this will cost £0.00 !

weasley wrote:...with the added bonus that it comes with a built-in easy-pour spout for disposal.
Done the same myself. . Also made a funnel out of the top of an old lemonade bottle.

One each  

I just changed mine the other day mate, Castrol power 1 fully synthetic and a k&n filter. took me about an hour, getting fairings off and all that, but was easy enough. there is a difference in the way the bike feels, it seems to be revving faster but it might be my imagination

I use plastic washing up bowls, got one for oil and one for coolant

#1 Tip



Always! Always! Always! Make sure you replace the oil filler cap when you're done.  


(It would amaze you how easy it is to forget that (since it's pretty small) and end up with a very waterproof right leg)

replace the cap?? what? you mean put it back on or buy new one?

Replace, as in put it back on.


(If you forget and it falls onto the road somewhere, like I did, a new one will cost about £25)

Tip #2: always, always, ALWAYS remove the filler cap before undoing the drain plug (this is for any drain-and-fill operation). Last thing you want is to drain it the find the filler won't budge. Almost came a cropper on that one on a car gearbox oil change.

oil was the easiest job to do