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wee bit confused on oil type

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
A

Anonymous

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So I see there are a few mentions towards using non energy conserving oil in the GS'es. My bike (82 GS450L) says "Use SAE 10-W40". The only non energy conserving oil, or SAE oil I can find in the parts stores is straight weight oil (SAE 30, SAE 40, etc). All the multi weight oils are energy conserving.

When I got the bike, it was about a bit low, so I just grabbed the Auto Zone store brand 10-W40, and topped it off. This was about 150 miles ago. Since I have it down now replacing the R/R and ignitor, I figured I'd do an oil change too.

Is there some sort of special bike oil I should be using? Something that I can get at AutoZone, and I was too blind to notice it last time? Or will "regular" 10-W40 be OK to use? Should I be using synthetic oil (thinking about using a synthetic blend oil....)?

Oh yeah, and I did get a new O-ring with the filter :wink:
 
From What I have Read on this Site ANY decent Brand of oil is OK . A lot of folks say there is No benefit in using the Synthetics in these Old Bikes. One thing that seems to be a universal No No is Additives. They can screw up your clutch which shares the motor oil on these bikes. It seems that monitoring the fluid levels is more important than what brand of oil is used. :wink:
 
The required 10/40 wt do not have energy additives oils like 10/30 & such will have them I use Castrol GTX 10/40 available everywhere
 
Energy conserving oils will have a banner on the bottom of the API (American Petroleum Institute) rating circle that says: Energy Conserving. It will usually be on the back of the bottle.

Most 10W30 dino, synthetic and synthetic blends will be energy conserving. There are exceptions.

10W40 oils are usually not energy conserving, there will be no banner in the API rating circle. All the oil companies make 'em. Can't go wrong, like Lynn says, with Castrol, or any of the major oil companies 10-40's. Just change it regularly. Oil is cheap compared to engine parts.

Oh, don't worry about that SAE thing. That's the Society of Automotive Engineers. :roll: You gotta have the secret handshake to go to their meetings and they're boring anyway...
It gets confusing who rates what with oil and things have changed in 25 years.

What I do presently, and it works for me, is use a good inexpensive car oil like Havoline, Chevron or my current oil, Phillips 66 TropArtic. Buy it when its's on sale, and change the oil every 1000-1500 miles. I change my filter every other oil change, but if I do a thousand mile week/weekend I might go an extra oil change without a filter change. 3 quarts of oil under $6, that's what you'd pay for 1 quart of 'motorcycle oil' at a bike shop. And now we're into another segment to the oil thread.
 
I use a syn 20/50 in my 80 GS750, works great, as far as the clutches go, i had installed some 1100 clutch springs, asbsolutely no slippage ever and that is with two up and bags.
 
Auto Zone usually carries Valvoline 10W40 4-cycle motorcycle oil for about $3.15/quart in the D/FW area. Usually hanging on a small rack by the rest of the Valvoline. I found 30 quarts of 10W40 Suzuki 4-cycle on eBay for $3.00 a quart (including shipping). Just change it regular and it will probably never give you an oil related failure.
 
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