i have a 1967 honda dream motorcycle i want to clean up. it has a cetrifugal oil cleaner, not a filter. any idea how this would work with regards to trapping the cleaned out gunk loosened by your treatment? the "experts" say not to use any oil other than 30 wt non-detergent to avoid suspended solids which the oil spinner cant effectively separate, and i wonder if it will be effective with the auto rx. dont want to go wrecking a 42 year old motorcycle engine..... thanks for your ideas!
Interesting question. So it's like (or is) a centrifuge? I don't see the problem. I also don't get the don't use anything but ND oil.
If anything, Auto-Rx would make smaller particles easier to trap ..or so I reason.
Are the experts really commenting from knowledge on oil, or are they primarily experienced with the bike engine and have fashioned some constructed cause and effect that may not be entirely based in fact ..but conforms to what they did ..and what happened????
While not to discount their, I'm sure, hard earned knowledge, it can be as simple as:
My father used Pennzoil all his life. His car had sludge. Therefore, Pennzoil causes sludge. Ignoring the hundreds of thousands of units that used Pennzoil and didn't experience sludge.
If you see what I'm saying.... Now this may not be the case, but I've found very few people who really spend the time to research motor oils.
Generally speaking, I would think that detergent oils and especially Auto-Rx (much more so) would make the centrifuge work better. Particles not caught should be of little or no consequence until they're in such abundance that they can themselves become abrasive.
I would think that you're refreshing your sump often enough to prevent this level of soot/insolubles.
yes, it spins and the particles are flung to the insides of the cylinder. thats the oil cleaner cylinder, not the engine cylinder.... yes, their knowledge is of the engine, and i am inclined to run one of the rotella diesel oils like i do in my other bike. their reasoning is that the detergents keep particles in suspension better and dont let the cleaner do its work of separating them. i find this questionable and would rather tend to think that advances in oil tech in the last 40 years would tend to trump any negatives. ESPECIALLY if i follow the 1000 mile oil change intervals recommended for this old bike. ok, thanks for the input, i mainly just wanted to bounce some ideas!
greg
-- Edited by greg78gs750 on Friday 22nd of May 2009 10:16:29 AM
The problem that we've all encountered is that while we may learn the intimate nuances of a given device (may that be a SBC or whatever) the rest of automotive technology advances in the background without our knowledge. If we have no reason to change our view, we don't.
As you figured, oils have advanced a great deal in even the last 8 years ..let alone 40. This is especially true in terms of deposit control. They typically don't clean all that well, but produce less of their own mess under proper conditions. Sometimes engine design doesn't cooperate ..some times owners are negligent ...and sometimes you get both. The Euro engines from VW/Audi that spec'd really limited distribution oils in a North American market with too few dealers to service a "hurry up and wait" consumer that they sold them to is one instance. Toyota had issues with the same consumers for some of the same reasons. It's just that they didn't spec fancy oils. Same negligent consumers. So, have a few design issues ..add a busy lifestyle .
This essentially translates to a variable time line where deposits are going to form. There's virtually nothing to stop ring coking in any engine ..so Auto-Rx is about the only assured way of coping with it.
In any event (sorry for the long winded blabbing), I'd just do your own survey of the centrifuge over the course of your treatment. If your engine has had a steady diet of ND oil, I'd expect a decent amount of liberation of material for the centrifuge to collect. I might check it more often than just at the service interval. At least until you're confident that it has the capacity to handle the load of liberated material.
Please keep us posted. This is something I've never run into before and would like to hear about your results.
