Girlfriend is from Austin and I lived in New Orleans for a long while so I know the heat. Traffic in the south is nothing like traffic in NYC. It once took me 3 hours to get to New Jersey via the holland tunnel at 12:00 at night. Had a cb750 and a 550 and neither one had the overheating problems I have had in NYC traffic - it is unmerciful.
Terry - When I get to the engine part of my cb cafe project - expect an order from me.
No worries mate!
All the talk about "cutoff's" and various ways to block the flow of oil to the cooler, made me think. I bought a complete oil cooler setup from an 83 cb650, including adapter plate, filter cover, bolt, the cooler, and lines still attached to the cooler and plate. It doesn't have any sort of cutoff that i can see. Am i missing something?
Terry: Do you utilize a cutoff on your cooler setups?
G'Day Mate, yes I do, the coolers that I use now have a very simple system of flat tubing or "rows". There are two larger dia rows in the cooler that allow colder, thicker oil to bypass the narrower cooling "rows", and return to the engine. When the oil gets hotter, it thins, so it will then pass through the cooling rows.
Very simple indeed, and a lot cheaper than a dedicated thermostatically controlled cutoff, which of course will fail eventually, just like the thermostat in your car's cooling system.
Do stock bikes need an oil cooler? Well, 90% of the dead engines that I've seen over my 28 year ownership of CB750's have been due to oil failure. Most of these bikes were stockers, some had been neglected, but most had just been ridden.
Unlike the big Kawasakis and Suzukis of the era with roller bearing cranks, our bikes were not "bullet-proof", and I started out this whole cooler thing because I wanted to protect my
stock engine. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to know that a cooler will extend the life of ANY engine, that's why most big air cooled bikes have them fitted as standard nowadays. Cheers, Terry.
