Ran it out of oil!

[Austiclees]

Hello every one. I just bought an 02 Katana 3 weeks ago as my "starter bike" and I will have to say that I love it. I've been reading these forums for about 2 months before i bought my bike and love the comunity.

Long story short, the Kat was an 02, but it only had 2,700 miles on it when i bought it. the guy said that he changed the oil at 2,500 miles. and going off of what people have "said" to me, i ignored that part of the owners manual that i "grabbed" from a llink on this site.

I'm riding home from work in Jacksonville, FL on I95 North, just squeezed past the rain clouds and the bike shuts down. I throw it in Neutral and coast for a while, trying to crank it back up. I finally came to a stop just past the Emerson exit and it wouldn't crank back up. The oil light was on, but the engine was turning over fine, so I know it wasn't seized up.

I let it cool off, meanwhile the rain cloud followed me and poored on me for like an hour. it never did crank back up, so my step dad trailered it to their house and we put 3 quars of mobile 1 synthetic in it, and it crunk right back up fine.

It was very hard to shift for a while, my guess is that the tranny and clutch use the same engine oil and it just took a while to fill back in or something.

All that to say...

How bad did it murder my bike by running it dry? is there anything I should do? I plan on chaging the oil again this weekend, cause that very new clean motor oil turned black in like 5 min after cranking it bank up.

By the way, this is my new daily driver... I sold my 01 BMW 325i 4-door sedan and bought this.. LOL, probably the worst time of the year to buy a bike, but I love it!

[IndyGunner]

glad you love bikes, sorry to hear its probably dead

[Austiclees]

glad you love bikes, sorry to hear its probably dead

It's not dead. When i put oil back in it, it ran just like normal. I haven't noticed anything different. it just took a while for the shifter to be smooth again.

[whitecl0ver]

Well now I guess we learned what that lil site glass is for? How hard is it to glance down at it b4 u take off?

[Austiclees]

Well now I guess we learned what that lil site glass is for? How hard is it to glance down at it b4 u take off?

LOL, yeah, but like I said, I was going off of what someone else told me..."Oh just make sure that you can barely see the oil at the bottom of the window when it is stood up straight."

I'm like "are you sure dude? there's 2 little lines here, if I'd have to gues, I'd say that it needs to be between them."

Well whatever, I'm just glad it is still running. I just want to know if there is anything i should do to it now to clean it real well or whatever.

[brooder]

Cycle in some new oil a couple times. Remove the oil cooler and drain that as well. That will give you about a 85% (I think) removal of all the old oil. Do that a couple of times to clean everything out.

[Zepp]

It may be running but chances are you did some serious damage to the motor.

[loudnlow7484]

Oh just change the oil a couple of times, maybe 100 miles apart, and keep on rockin it. If you scored up your mains or something, then you'd have to tear the motor down to fix them anyway. Ride it until it dies, but try to scrape up some cash to start building a 'replacement motor fund'.

[DOCTORNITRO]

<------ Plays "Taps" solemnly.

[NiteMare]

as said before change the oil a couple of times over the next couple of hundred miles ....

if it survives that long then you may have been really lucky....

but i'd seriously consider saving up for a replacement engine

[Sasquatch]

Wow..let me get this straight. Someone 'told' you it was fine, yet YOU saw the 2 little lines (L and F...meaning Low and Full) on the site glass, and you ignored them?

Hmm, hope it lasts for a bit.


No offense intended, but that was a pretty stupid thing to do.

[Wheel]

time for you to learn a great life lesson from this: Never trust what anyone tells you, especially when your own conscience tells you otherwise. Especially in matters of your own health, safety, and general well-being, you are the one that has to make decisions.

It is not that other guy's fault, it is your fault for not checking into something that you felt was wrong that was a pretty critical item!

[ChuglyXJ]

On one hand I'm feeling "sucks to be you, you know better good luck", other hand says "hope all is well".

Not to come down on you but you were like WTF with the lines, even if it were at the bottom of the site window it shouldn't have taken 2-3 qts to get it to start, there is another issue at hand. Where did the oil go, if the PO just changed it and there is no leaks find out what oils were used, you may have a slight chance of being able to get them to buy the new engine, or help a bit. Because you killed it, it may not be dead now but its been flushed and is just spinning in the bowl.

[redkat750]

Well everyone has beat up on you about this, and rightly so. If it had been a car with a dry dipstick you know you wouldn't have just taken his word for it.

Having said that, I know the area your talking about where you broke down. That's a real bad place to lose power no matter whether your driving or riding. You kept your head, didn't panic, and got off the road safe. So a well deserved good job on handling a very nasty situation.

[ctandc]

No offense guys....

But IF he ran it out of oil, and was doing highway speeds...it would have seized up.

Tell ya what.

Remove the oil drain plug and post up how much oil comes out.

Bet it's more than 3 quarts.

And if it's running without any abnormal noises AFTER you supposedly ran it out of oil, I'd bet it's fine.

I've killed a couple of engines from oil starvation, granted they were car engines, but internal combustion is internal combustion.

One on purpose (long story, but the replacement 327 was built and my buddy couldn't stand driving that 230 straight six anymore) and I removed the drain plug, cranked it up, let it run and then put a brick on the gas pedal. It took a long time to start knocking....

The second time I busted an external oil line on my race car. By the time the oil pressure gauge dropped it was too late......

Just run it and be grateful.