Topic: smoke from breather/gas in oil has me stumped...need help from the experts!

[johnspeck]

huh...just went out to take a look at the bike.
cold compression is 181 on the left cylinder, 185 on the right.  both plugs look GREAT, maybe even a tad lean.  still a little bit of smoke from the breather when the bike is warm, but not smoking like it was a couple weeks ago.
i changed the oil last weekend, and switched from castrol 20w50 to a shell diesel 15w40.  oil seems good, no gas smell.

weird.

[kghost]

You know....theres gonna be some oil out the breather...

Its what the breather does.

If it bothers you route it into one or both of the pods....so the oil gets sucked back thru the carbs and burned in the engine.

[Hush]

Why use diesel oil in your bike?
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing just asking why!
When we want to "flush out" a car engine we put a litre of diesel oil into the regular stuff and run it for a short time then change all the oil and the filter as it clogs petrol car filters.
Not sure what it will do to a bike engine?
But if it's working for you why knock it.

[kghost]

Why use diesel oil in your bike?
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing just asking why!
When we want to "flush out" a car engine we put a litre of diesel oil into the regular stuff and run it for a short time then change all the oil and the filter as it clogs petrol car filters.
Not sure what it will do to a bike engine?
But if it's working for you why knock it.

Language barrier Hush.

He means OIL formulated for diesel engines...its about as close to the old spec. from honda as you'll find off the shelf.

He doesn't mean diesel fuel.

[Terry in Australia]

Kiwi's make mistakes like that all the time, due to their cultural speech impediment. I remember riding past a farm in NZ many years ago and noticed that the sheep there looked really bad, hadn't been shorn in years, it was terrible. So I stopped and said to the farmer, "Hey d1ckhead, why don't you shear your sheep?" To which he replied, "I don't share my sheep with anyone, so fcuk off you big mouthed Aussie pr1ck!" 

[kghost]

 

Nothing like a good Kiwi sheep joke.

[scunny]

me thinks snorting a cheese sandwich thru the nose is not recommended, it sure feels funny. leave our sheep alone Terry

[Retro Rocket]

Nothing like a good Kiwi sheep joke.

How do the Kiwi's find sheep in long grass ?




















Delightful......

Mick

[Hush]

Hey Terry, was your Faaaaaaattttthhhhhheeeerrrr a shepherd?

[TwoTired]

huh...just went out to take a look at the bike.
cold compression is 181 on the left cylinder, 185 on the right.  both plugs look GREAT, maybe even a tad lean.  still a little bit of smoke from the breather when the bike is warm, but not smoking like it was a couple weeks ago.
i changed the oil last weekend, and switched from castrol 20w50 to a shell diesel 15w40.  oil seems good, no gas smell.

weird.

If it is white "smoke", then is is probably water vapor boiling off.  Every time the engine cools down, humidity in the air condenses on the inside of the engine cases, just like humidity condenses on the outside of a cold beer glass.
When the engine heats up sufficiently, the internal condensation turns into a vapor.  Looks just like what you exhale on a cold winter morning.

The water can emulsify into the oil.  So, changing it could have removed a lot of internal water at the same time.  Short, repeated cool down cycles with the temps close to the dew point will accelerate the internal condensate buildup.  Normally you need to acheive, then hold and maintain full operating temperature about 15-20 minute to boil off all the water inside the crankcase.  Higher outside temps and low humidity will shorten this boil off cycle.

[johnspeck]

ok, everything seems to be great now.  just took a nice long ride, and the past few weeks it's been near perfect.

things i have done, and what i think the problems were:

made sure the petcock wasn't leaking.  made sure my floats weren't sticking.  turned out to be my overflow tubes.  shortened them and routed better, no obstructions.

i think most of my 'gassy oil' was me overthinking things, but i think the rich state of tune was contributing to the smell.

the main culprit, as far as i can tell, was my breather tube being routed improperly (pointed slightly upwards instead of down), so that any small amount of condensation couldn't drip out.  and TwoTired nailed it, i think...i wasn't riding the bike long enough to really warm it up (once the weather cooled off) and burn off all the condensation.  combined with the tube not being able to just 'drip' excess out, i was noticing a lot more smoke being burned off.

thanks for the insight (and good kiwi jokes!)

[Hush]

Good show, cured.