OK? Who does the flush? Admit it!

[imeyers]

Whenever I change any fluid in my bike I always do what I call a flush. Once the oil is drained I pour about 1/2 a quart in to flush it out. Same for the transmission and when I did that boy did more stuff come out. i figure I do not do fluid changes that much as I ride only a couple of thousand miles on each bike each season so what the heck. 5 quarts of oil instead of 4, 2 quarts of tranny fluid instead of 1. May seem like a waste to most but I am anal like that and have seen that is works. And I use amsoil so it is not cheap stuff either but I am an amsoil dealer so I get it at wholesale which helps.

[10ovr]

I use amsoil so it is not cheap stuff either but I am an amsoil dealer so I get it at wholesale which helps. What a great way to sell more oil

[JayW]

...and when I did that boy did more stuff come out....

 

I have heard of this before but don't understand the theory. If I take the drain plug out and let it drip until it won't drip any more, how can adding another quart of fluid get more than another quart ultimately in the drain pan?

 

To answer your question, I have never done this, and don't anticipate starting.

 

Jay

[motoguy128]

Awww... I'm telling Al Gore on you for wasting our planets resources. As punishment, you will be forced to watch his movie follwed by all of Michael Moore's films. A 10 page essay on the negative environmental impact of wasting oil must then be submitted to the forum by Friday.

 

I did that once when I accidentally poured 1/4 bottle of fork oil in the crankcase of my KLX. F***** Honda uses hte same color bottle an cap for their fork oil as their engine oil. I'm never using Honda oil again for anything. FOrtunately the KLX only uses 1.5 quarts total, so i flushed it with 1 quart of cheap oil I had lying around, then refilled it again with the right stuff.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

Jay,

The idea is that not all the particulate matter remains suspended in the oil. Some will precipitate out and adhere to the surfaces within. On the crankcase, there is usually enough oil to get most of this stuff to come out with the oil. The tranny is a different matter though, there isn't a whole lot of oil in there to begin with and the heavy gear oil moves slow so there won't be much scrubbing effect.

 

I don't do it as a rule but, if I see anything more than a light sheen on the magnet, I might just dump a quart of 30 weight through there.

[Husker Red]

When you flush the tranny do you start the bike and ride around a little or do you just pour it in and right back out?

[notacop]

The instructions for an oil change on my '55 Ariel Huntmaster called for adding a mix of solvent and oil and running the bike for a brief period. Worked rather well!

That was 50 years ago bunky, Oil don't need that no mo'.

Start hot and let it drip 'til it don't and plug and fill.

Then go watch the Gore movie 2X

I still don't figure why all these non BMW oils are used in transes and stuff. If BMW likes it why go find exotica instead.

[Ken H.]

Never have, probably never will. People obsess about oil too much IMHO.

[bross]

Never have, probably never will. People obsess about oil too much IMHO.

[RFW]

People obsess about oil too much IMHO.

Absolutely! "Oil" seems to bring out the irrationality in people.

[FrankBrown]

Does this mean your left cam/rocker arms are always cleaner than the right ones??????

[imeyers]

I am not advocating which oil to use, but in my opinion Amsoil and Redline oils are the best in the business. I change my oil once a year so who cares about the extra cost. If I was worried about the cost I would not have a $20,000 motorcycle. In addition. When I changed my tranny fluid I flushed about half a quart of gear oil I had from another friends bike I did and low and behold more of the red tranny fluid came out with it. Yes I am anal but I can live with throwing away a few quarts of oil every year. As for which oil just use what ever you want, that was not the point here. The fluids are the life blood of the motorcycle so why not use the best. Seems stupid to me to spend $20k on a bike and then go cheap on fluids.

[UBe]

A little variation on your theme. I began doing the occasional back-to-back oil changes 20 or so years ago after noticing that after a complete oil change, the oil in my car engine would be almost as black as before the change in just a day or two of normal driving. To me it meant there was oil in the engine that simply did not drain out. So, at what I can only describe as random intervals, I buy twice the supplies I need for the oil change. I change the oil and filter as usual, then drive the car/bike for an hour or so, and do it again, filter too. The oil will usually stay a nice clear honey color for almost as long as it did when the vehicle was new. Remember how that used to look on the dipstick when your car only had 15K on it. Now the only supporting evidence I have ever had for doing this came two years ago with the purchase of a Kawasaki Concours. The stated oil capacity was more than the stated amount of oil to refill on an oil change. There was apparently something close to half a quart of oil that simply would not drain out of the engine. (It has 2 oil drain plugs to make matters worse.) So if the factory recommendations were followed, each oil change started out tainted by a goodly sum of dirty oil. I think this is not an uncommon characteristic of other engines too.