Where did the oil go???

[Boatguy3371]

Story is, i recently acquired a 94 Kat 600: problem is it sat for 2 years. I have cleaned the carbs, replaced ALL the fluids according to spec (or at least thought i did). then today i was putting on some new fuel lines and happened to look down and that lil tell tell window in the crank case and noticed that there was no oil showing. I thought hhhhhhmmmmmmmm thats odd, i know i put 4 quarts in her just the other day. So i leaned the bike up right and saw that the oil registers at the "low" line for the window. I looked at every possible spot the bike has sat since i changed the oil and found no leaks, i inspected every possible place for a leak and nothing there. Shes dry as a bone. My question is, am i missing something? should i have put in more than 4 quarts?

[Boatguy3371]

Oh and theer is "NO" smoking while she is running either.

[The CyberPoet]

Re: Where did the oil go???

Story is, i recently acquired a 94 Kat 600: problem is it sat for 2 years. I have cleaned the carbs, replaced ALL the fluids according to spec (or at least thought i did). then today i was putting on some new fuel lines and happened to look down and that lil tell tell window in the crank case and noticed that there was no oil showing. I thought hhhhhhmmmmmmmm thats odd, i know i put 4 quarts in her just the other day. So i leaned the bike up right and saw that the oil registers at the "low" line for the window. I looked at every possible spot the bike has sat since i changed the oil and found no leaks, i inspected every possible place for a leak and nothing there. Shes dry as a bone. My question is, am i missing something? should i have put in more than 4 quarts?

Did you drain the oil cooler when you changed the old oil out? If so, it will take more than 4 liters. Remember that the cooler holds a bunch that isn't part of a normal oil change, and the filter is dry when you change it to, so you may have to use more than 4 liters for an oil change. I know I usually end up using a bit more than 4 liters each change to be right at the full mark.

Similarly, the 2-year-old oil that was in there may have partially evaporated (esp. in dry areas), so that the oil level in the tranny and in the main galley of the engine was low as well (these are areas that don't drain all the way). A typical oil change for a kat only changes 65 - 75% of the oil because of these "hidden" storage areas. Again, in this case, it may take more than four liters.

Additionally, if there was water (condensation) in the engine from the two years of being parked, it may have displaced oil when you first filled it, then boiled off when the engine got warm, lowering the level you see in the window.

Finally, the valves or rings may be bad, in which case you need to check the inside of your airbox to see if the oil migrated there -- which is what would happen with bad ring blow-by. If the inside of the airbox has the missing oil in goodly quantities (and not just a light misting of oil), you need to do a leak-down compression test to figure out which cylinders are bad, how bad, etc.

My advice:
Add the oil it needs. Remember the oil level in a Kat is set correctly by running the bike a couple minutes then shutting off the engine and checking the window 60 seconds later. At 60 seconds is the "true" oil level, and before and after that time frame will give you an incorrect reading.

Do another oil change in about 30 - 50 miles to sweep out more of the old oil, and this time disconnect the cooler and drain it (you don't need to change the filter again). Refill again, measure, then drive it and keep an eye on the level. Maximum acceptible consumption should be considered to be about 1/2 liter per 1000 miles, although many Kats don't consume any significant amounts of oil. The quality of the oil plays into it too -- use JASO-MA rated motor oils in your oil-air cooled Katana for best life expectancy.

For more on how to understand and choose motorcycle oils, see CyberPoet's "How to understand, select, choose motorcycle motor oils, their additives and ratings" at MotorcycleAnchor.com

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[ThAzKat]

Yeah, what he said

Welcome to KR and I hope to hear what you find out.

[Dan Dubeau]

Easy solution, make sure the bike is on level ground, and either on the center stand or held vertical.

Yesterday i was going out for a ride, and i had the bike parked in my driveway on the side stand, and it's a slight downhill. My dad comes out and said there was no oil in there. So i put it on the center stand. Still no oil. lean on the back to bring the front up, and bingo just below the full mark.

Just a little off level, can make a huge difference.

If that doesn't work, cyber is the one to listen too

[stevnmd]

He said he "recently" changed the oil. I highly doubt that any evaporated, especially in a sealed system...

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03025.htm

[ThAzKat]

BUMP

[The CyberPoet]

He said he "recently" changed the oil. I highly doubt that any evaporated, especially in a sealed system...

I think I wasn't totally clear in my writings when I said that, so I added a few words to improve the comprehension of what I meant -- that the oil that might have "evaporated" would have been the 2-year-old oil that was in the areas that don't drain out during a traditional oil change, thus leaving those tranny & engine galley areas low on oil. When he put in the new oil, it wouldn't have filled those areas until he ran the engine; then those areas would have gone back to their normal (full) states, resulting in the engine taking more than the standard amount of oil during the change. This is particularly possible for exceptionally dry, hot areas (deserts), and high altitudes (where the increase in altitude increases the votility of liquids). I'm not saying the new oil he recently added suddenly evaporated...

Finally, the oiling system is not a sealed system -- there is a breather tube from the top of the valve covers off to the airbox that keeps the system open to the ambient air when the engine is off (and induces a vacuum to pull vapors, including fine oil mists and fuel vapors back into the air intake tract when the engine is running to be burned off).

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet